POST
PRODUCTION
SCRIPT
FOREIGN
CORRESPONDENT
2018
Bloodland
28
mins 48 secs
©2018
ABC
Ultimo Centre
700
Harris Street Ultimo
NSW
2007 Australia
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Box 9994
Sydney
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2001 Australia
Phone: 61 2 8333 4383
Fax: 61 2 8333 4859
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Precis
|
On the sprawling maizefields outside
Johannesburg, the Engelbrecht family knows the full horror of the farm
attacks that are so commonplace they no longer rate a headline. |
|
|
Last Mother’s Day Jo-an Engelbrecht was
expecting his elderly father and mother for lunch. When they failed to
appear, he walked up to their house. |
|
|
“They were tied. My dad was lying on
his back, my mother was lying face down. Their throats were slit, they were
tortured,” he says. The killers had extracted the keys to their safes and
cars. |
|
|
“My dad knew it was coming. We all know
it’s coming. It’s just a question of when,” says Jo-an. |
|
|
The old couple were duly added to the
tally of farm murders that some Afrikaners believe are part of a wider
political campaign to drive them off the land. While the numbers – some say
47 last year, others say 84 – are in dispute, there’s no argument that the
crimes are horrifying. |
|
|
But as Jonathan Holmes reports, they
pale beside the nearly 20,000 South Africans, black and white, who were
murdered in 2017 alone. |
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|
In this confronting report, Holmes asks
whether the killing of white farmers is just a tragic fact of life, and
death, in one of the world’s most violent societies - or whether it is indeed
politically or racially motivated. |
|
|
The siege mentality of white farmers is
magnified by radical politicians like Julius Malema. His Economic Freedom
Fighters party sprang from the country’s chronic failure to deliver land to
landless blacks. |
|
|
“We are taking the future into our own
hands,” he tells a rally of dancing followers in their red berets. Then a
chant: “Shoot to kill! Shoot to kill! Pow, pow!” as he pulls an imaginary
trigger. |
|
|
Recently Malema wedged the governing
ANC into supporting expropriation of land without compensation. So far, the
government has not seized any farmland without paying for it. |
|
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But white farmers say that already the
private market for farmland has collapsed. “Why would you buy a farm if
tomorrow the government is going to take it?” asks Jo-an Engelbrecht. |
|
|
For now, Engelbrecht is digging in on
his farm in the faint hope that President Cyril Ramaphosa can stabilise a
country wracked by crime and corruption after a decade of Jacob Zuma’s rule.
But for his daughter Tessa, her grandparents’ murder was the final straw. She
wants out – maybe to Australia, if those hints of fast track visas
materialise. “I wouldn’t think twice if I got the chance,” she says. |
|
Drone
shots. Montage intro |
Music |
00:00 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
Apartheid tore South Africa apart.
Some say the white oppressors are now the persecuted. White farms are being robbed and farmers
murdered. JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Not only do they kill, |
00:18 |
Engelbrecht |
but the way they
kill. They torture you”. |
00:29 |
Intro
montage |
Music |
00:32 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
The government says they’re crimes like any other, in a society where poverty
breeds violence. RONALD LAMOLA:
“There is crime, |
00:38 |
Lamola |
which is
affecting everyone, whether black or white”. |
00:45 |
Intro
montage – Night patrol |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
Their victims claim that behind the farm attacks is racial hatred, stirred up
by politicians. |
00:47 |
Roets |
ERNST ROETS:
“We’ve been murdered for some time, now they’re going to take the land as
well and I think it’s very hard to conclude that there’s not a racist
motive”. |
00:57 |
Rally |
|
01:04 |
Malema
ally inciting
crowd |
JULIUS MALEMA:
“Shoot to kill! Pow… Pow!” |
01:07 |
Engelbrecht |
JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “This is hate. This is
political hate”. |
01:14 |
Rally |
JULIUS MALEMA:
[at a rally] “You must say enough is enough, we are taking the future into
our own hands!” |
01:16 |
Title:
Foreign Correspondent |
Music |
01:23 |
Landscape |
|
01:27 |
Super: |
|
01:31 |
Title:
Bloodland |
|
01:34 |
Holmes
standing on bridge. Super: |
Music |
01:38 |
Drone
shot. Vehicle crossing Vaal River |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
A hundred and eighty years ago, Afrikaner farmers, the Boers, crossed the
Vaal River with their ox-wagons and flocks.
They bought off or fought off the scattered tribes that lived across
the river. A century later, any black
landowners that remained were forced to leave. Under the policy of apartheid, the only
blacks who were allowed to live here were workers on the white men’s farms or
in the white men’s mines. |
01:50 |
Conserv
volunteers training exercise |
|
02:24 |
|
Now, it’s the
Boers who are feeling under siege. |
02:29 |
|
TREVOR ROBERTS:
[drill with volunteers] “Keep your barrel on the target. I want as many barrels pointing at windows
as possible”. |
02:33 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
When a farm attack is reported, armed civilians often arrive long before
police. |
02:38 |
|
TREVOR ROBERTS:
[drill with volunteers] “I haven’t heard anybody shout, ‘Is there somebody in
that house?’ Have we got a victim there?” JONATHAN HOLMES:
The guns aren’t loaded, but this training exercise is deadly serious. There
might be survivors in the house in desperate need of help. But the criminals might still be in there
too. |
02:50 |
|
TREVOR ROBERTS:
[drill with volunteers] “Okay gents what you did here was better than when
you were coming through that door”. JONATHAN
HOLMES: Trevor Roberts’ security
company, Conserv, used to specialise in guarding wildlife against poachers. |
03:12 |
|
Now, deterring
and responding to violent robberies on isolated farms is his company’s core
business. |
03:25 |
|
A gun battle, he
says, is the last thing he wants his volunteers to face. |
03:38 |
Roberts
with Holmes |
TREVOR ROBERTS:
“The ideal situation is to rather get the perpetrators out of the house and
into the fields”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“So you’d rather scare them away?” TREVOR ROBERTS:
“Rather scare them away and run and our objective is to save a life, and that
would be the victim”. |
03:48 |
Drone
shots maize fields |
Music |
04:03 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
An hour’s drive south-west of Muldersdrift, on the maize fields around
Fochville, on May the 13th this year, nobody was scared away and
nobody’s life was saved. |
04:07 |
Interiors farm house with smashed walls |
|
04:20 |
Photo
of Fanie Engelbrecht on sideboard |
78-year old
Fanie Engelbrecht didn’t have time to call for help. When Fanie and his wife Colleen didn’t show
up for a Mother’s Day lunch, his son, Jo-an strolled 300 metre up the track
to his parent’s house to investigate. |
04:24 |
Jo-an
with Holmes outside house |
JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “When I came here my dad’s vehicle was standing here like he was
already back from church, nothing unusual. |
04:40 |
Jo-an
and Holmes into house |
And I went into
the house. As I entered into the hall
here, there was a lot of blood lying on the floor here and I immediately
realised that something is wrong. |
04:51 |
Smashed
door, into study |
This is the door
they actually broke down to get to the study and I found them lying there,
tied together, next to each other”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Right here, |
05:06 |
Holmes
and Jo-an in study |
tied together?” JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Yeah they were tied. My
dad was lying on his back. My mother
was lying face down, hands tied behind her back. My dad had a big gaping hole like the size
of a golf ball in his throat. There
was a pool of blood here, all over.
When I touched him, he was cold already. My mother was lying face down but she was
still hot. But I couldn’t feel a
pulse. Their throats were slit. They
were tortured here. I found an iron cord
around my mother’s neck. She was
obviously… they tortured her and yeah”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Why do you think they would have done that?” |
05:18 |
[shot
continuous] |
JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “I think they wanted the keys for the safes, they wanted the
keys for the vehicles and they tortured them to get that information out of
them”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“And then they killed them anyway”. JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Then they kill them, yeah,
when they’re done. |
06:15 |
Jo-an
and Holmes |
My dad always
said it’s not if, it’s when”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Did he?” JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Yeah. He knew it’s
coming. We all know it’s coming. It’s just a question of when”. |
06:32 |
Holmes
Jo-an and Tessa on verandah |
JONATHAN
HOLMES: When Jo-an called his wife Sua
to tell her the grim news, she could barely speak to their daughter Tessa. |
06:44 |
Tessa |
TESSA
ENGELBRECHT: [subtitle] My mother had no words, so I asked her, ‘Mama, what’s
going on? Tell me what’s happening’ because she was torn apart when my father
phoned her. All she could get out was,
‘Grandpa, Granny, murdered’. I just
collapsed. I just cried and I didn’t
know what to do. |
06:52 |
|
I was very close
to them and they were both wonderful, gentle people, children of the Lord”. |
07:15 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Aren’t you frightened to live here?” TESSA
ENGELBRECHT: “I am because |
07:21 |
|
I don’t know
when I go to my room whether it will be my last day. I don’t know if I am ever going to wake up
again” |
07:26 |
Jo-an
with neighbour inspecting security fence |
JONATHAN
HOLMES: Belatedly, with the help of
his neighbour, Jo-an Engelbrecht is installing electrified security fences
around his farmhouse ,mainly to assuage the fears of this wife and daughter. JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “I’m doing it because it might make them feel safer, but I know
for sure that if they want you, they will get you outside. |
07:34 |
Jo-an |
You can build a
prison around your house, but at some point, you have to leave that prison
and go out and farm. And that’s where
they get you”. |
08:02 |
Engelbrecht
farmhouse interiors |
Music |
08:12 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
In Australia a double murder on a farm would be headline news for days. Not in South Africa. It’s just too common an event. JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “My one neighbour, |
08:14 |
Jo-an |
Johannes Kitching
(?sp) and his wife, they were murdered about six months ago. Then there is Miss Simpson”. TESSA
ENGELBRECHT: “Nicky Simpson”. JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Nicky Simpson. She was
tortured. Drilled through her knees
and feet. Then there is Pitti Hoo (?
Sp) Also a neighbour, not far from
here, he was shot. Karl Hall (?sp) was
shot. So in the last 10, 20 years in this area I can name 20, 30 attacks,
murders on farmers”. |
08:27 |
“Plaas Moorde” memorial on hillside |
Music |
09:02 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Plaas Moorde” is Afrikaans for farm murders.
On a hillside in Limpopo province, a private landowner has planted
more than 2000 crosses. Each one
represents an individual murdered in a farm attack since 1994. Seventy-five more crosses were added last
year, but that figure is controversial. The nation’s biggest commercial
farmers' union claims there were only 47 farm murders last year, the lowest
number in nearly 20 years. |
09:09 |
Holmes
and Roets walk among the crosses |
AfriForum, an
outspoken Afrikaner lobby group, says that figure is absurd. |
09:48 |
|
ERNST ROETS:
[Deputy CEO, AfriForum] “It’s certainly wrong. During the calendar year of
2017, |
09:54 |
Roets.
Super: |
there’s been 84
farm murders that we could verify and when we say we could verify, we mean we
have a list and we have the names of the people actually who’ve been murdered
. So to say that there’s only been 47 is… I don’t know if it’s malicious or
if it’s negligence, or if there’s a problem with the process in collecting
the data, there could be a variety of reasons why the number is wrong”. |
09:59 |
“Plaas Moorde” memorial |
Music |
10:19 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
Whether farm murders last year numbered 47 or 75 or 84, they’re dwarfed by
the total number of people killed in one of the most violent societies on
earth. |
10:25 |
|
Music |
10:38 |
Holmes
to camera at “Plaas
Moorde” memorial |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“This place perhaps deliberately reminds a visitor of a war cemetery and like
all such places it’s moving. Each one
of these crosses represents somebody’s father or mother, somebody’s son or
daughter whose life was brutally cut short.
And yet these 2000 crosses represent white farmers and their families
murdered since 1994. If you planted a
cross for every South African, black or white, who’s been murdered just last
year, the crosses would stretch beyond the horizon – nearly 20,000 of them,
and most of them have no memorial”. |
10:46 |
Drone
shots. Diesploot |
|
11:23 |
|
JONATHAN
HOLMES: Not far from the Engelbrecht’s
farm near Fochville is the so-called “informal settlement” of Diepsloot. |
11:30 |
Diepsloot GVs |
It’s a place of
dire poverty and soaring unemployment. |
11:37 |
Holmes
walks through Diepsloot
with Mtika |
It wouldn’t be
wise to venture in here without a guide. Local journalist, Golden Mtika is
mine. He introduces me to Sebasu,
whose family of eight lives in a one room shack. She’s been waiting for a
government house for 11 years. Most of
that time she’s been unemployed. |
11:47 |
Sebasu |
SEBASU: “I’ve
done nursing, a two-year course, yes, but I still can’t find even just any
other job even without the one that I have qualifications for”. |
12:11 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Where would you like to live if you could choose?” SEBASU: “I would
like to choose to live somewhere else because this place, I have small kids
and I don’t think it’s a good environment for my kids to grow in and we don’t
even have water and more especially about sanitation, it’s something that…” |
12:24 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Hard to keep the kids clean and healthy, right?” SEBASU: “Yes,
yes, even to play on a clean environment.
”. |
12:43 |
Holmes
walks through Diepsloot
with Mtika to rubbish dump |
JONATHAN
HOLMES: Lack of sanitation is the last
of Diepsloot’s problems, Golden tells me.
It’s plagued by crime, violence and mob justice. The brutality that’s a feature of many farm
attacks is commonplace here. |
12:50 |
|
GOLDEN MTIKA:
“Last year November here, there was about four suspects who were apprehended
by the community. They accused them of
rape and they brought them here, to this pile of rubbish that you see
here. It was a multitude of people that
were here. All of them they were
murdered here, they were killed by the residents. Stoned, beaten by sharp objects. They put tyres around their necks, poured
petrol, then they set them alight on, so they died here”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“And they were alive when they did that?” GOLDEN MTIKA:
“Yes, when they brought them here they were alive. Yes, they killed them
here”. |
13:07 |
Drone
shots. Townships, cityscapes |
Music |
13:43 |
|
JONATHAN HOMES:
It’s not just in the settlements and the countryside that crime is rising. In South Africa’s great cities,
Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria – there’s a crime wave too. Armed robberies of security vans, home
invasions, street muggings. |
13:49 |
Cityscapes.
Night. |
Music |
14:07 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
According to the internationally respected Institute for Security Studies in
Pretoria, armed attacks have increased 40% since 2012. GARETH NEWHAM:
[Institute for Security Studies] “We have a real problem with violence and
it’s expressed in various different ways. |
14:12 |
Newham.
Super: |
And so for us
sitting in South Africa, looking at these 19,000 murders, looking at trying
at… trying to get a sense of where it’s taking place, the various complex
factors that result into it, this growth in armed attacks, the gangs involved
in cash in transit heists. And then suddenly there’s international attention
on the murders of white farmers. It
just sort of seems completely disproportionate. It’s not that it isn’t a problem, of course
for the victims it’s terribly traumatic, but it’s not the biggest challenge
facing South Africa”. |
14:28 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Is there any evidence for the claim
that’s often made that the farm attacks in particular are politically driven?
That they’re part of some organised campaign to drive the whites from the
land?” |
14:57 |
|
GARETH NEWHAM:
“There’s no credible evidence that the attacks against white farmers is
organised or politically driven. There is evidence that the attacks on white
farmers in South Africa are largely driven by criminal intent, greed”. |
15:08 |
Holmes
with Roets at Plaas
Moorde” memorial |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
But AfriForum’s, Ernst Roets, says it’s too simplistic to claim that the farm
attackers have only one motive. |
15:22 |
Roets.
Super: |
ERNST ROETS:
“Certainly robbery plays a role, and the intention to steal plays a role, but
certainly there’s enough evidence that racism plays a big role and there’s
enough evidence that political influences play a big role. There are reported cases where the
murderers themselves have said that they were influenced by politics in the
committing of these crimes. And
secondly, even more concerning than that, is the political climate in South
Africa”. |
15:30 |
EFF supporters outside sports stadium, Klerksdorp,
16 June 2018 |
|
15:54 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
That climate is heating up the white farmers say, and one cause is the rise
of a new political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, or EFF. I’ve come to
one of their rallies in North West province, where the mood to me seems far
from hostile. |
15:59 |
Holmes
with woman at rally |
WOMAN SUPPORTER:
“Jobs, opportunities, university and for everything. I love the EFF with my whole life”. |
16:25 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
The red berets and T shirts are a clear enough statement – this is an old
fashioned communist party. Its policy
is to nationalise all land in South Africa and redistribute it to the poor
and needy. |
16:47 |
Malema
addresses rally |
JULIUS MALEMA:
[at the rally] “Power! [crowd] To
us! Long live the EFF, love live! [crowd] Love live!” JONATHAN HOLMES:
The EFF’s self-styled Commander-in-Chief is Julius Malema, a former leader of
the ruling African National Congress’s Youth League. |
17:14 |
|
JULIUS MALEMA:
[at the rally] “We are not going to accept that the poor of the poor must be
excluded from education because they do not have money”. |
17:33 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
Expelled from the ANC in 2012, he started his own rival party and promises
the world to his followers. |
17:42 |
|
JULIUS MALEMA:
[at the rally] “Education is a right, all of us must have access to
education”. |
17:52 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
But there’s a dark side to Julius Malema’s populism. |
18:02 |
|
He sets race
against race with a recklessness that shocks the political establishment. At
this rally, he takes aim at the Indian middle class. |
18:09 |
|
JULIUS MALEMA:
[at the rally] “The majority of Indians hate Africans. The majority of Indians are racist”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
But his favourite target is the white landowner. He urges his followers to take back what
was stolen from them. |
18:20 |
|
JULIUS MALEMA:
[at the rally] “The white minority which took our land by force, you must say
enough is enough, we are taking the future into our own hands”. |
18:36 |
Malema
sings "Kill the Boer" |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
At the end of almost every speech he sings an old ANC war song, “Kill the
Boer”, although that particular phrase has been banned as hate speech. JULIUS MALEMA:
[singing] “We have taken our land back!
We have taken our land back! Shoot to kill. Shoot to kill. Pow. Pow, Pow Pow”. |
18:48 |
|
JONATHAN
HOLMES: For all his blatant racial
dog-whistling, Malema has proved to be a shrewd political operator. |
19:26 |
Malema
in parliament. Super: |
JULIUS MALEMA:
[in parliament] “There’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing this parliament
can do, with or without you, people are going to occupy land”. |
19:32 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
It was the EFF in parliament who proposed a motion in favour of expropriating
land without compensation, a move that the ANC, led by new state President
Cyril Ramaphosa, had little choice but to support. |
19:41 |
EFF
members in
parliament chanting and slapping desk |
JULIUS MALEMA:
“Occupy land! Occupy land! Occupy land! Occupy land!” |
19:55 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
So far, the ANC has not seized any farmland without paying market price. |
20:01 |
Holmes
walks with Lamola |
But when I
caught up with the ANC’s spokesman on land reform, Ronald Lamola, at a fancy
conference centre outside Pretoria, he made it clear that it soon will. |
20:07 |
Lamola.
Super: |
RONALD LAMOLA:
“There will be expropriation of some of the white owned farmlands. There will be expropriation of land that
government needs for roads or for residential purposes, so there will be
expropriation”. |
20:18 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“We’ve talked to white farmers who say, ‘We are being attacked and not
sufficiently protected by the government, and now, our land is under threat
as well. What they want to do is get rid of us’. What is your response to
that?” |
20:32 |
|
RONALD LAMOLA:
“It’s not true. There’s not such a
thing. There’s no crime targeted to
white people in South Africa. It’s
crime that’s happening in the farms, it’s happening everywhere and government
is doing its best to resolve the crime problem. With regard to the land question, there is
no way we can avoid it. We have to
address the land question”. |
20:46 |
Jo-an
on farm |
|
21:04 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
Farmers like Jo-an Engelbrecht say the mere threat of expropriation has
dramatically affected the market for private land. |
21:12 |
|
“I mean if you
wanted to sell this farm now, would you get a good price for it?” |
21:21 |
Jo-an |
JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Nothing. It’s zero. It’s
worth zero”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Already?” JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “We had several auctions in the last two, three weeks cancelled
because there was no people interested in buying land. Why would you buy a
farm and tomorrow the government is going to take it?” |
21:25 |
'Conserv'
volunteers night patrol |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
And who is going to buy a farm if living there endangers their lives? |
21:45 |
|
TREVOR ROBERTS:
[at night searching a paddock] “What’s happened is I’ve just spoken to a
tenant here of plot 174. He thinks he
disturbed some people that were in his house, that were breaking in”. |
21:52 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
A night time training exercise turns into a genuine manhunt. Trevor Roberts’ convoy of volunteers, a
dozen vehicles strong, begins to inspect the fence lines around the property,
looking for signs that the robbers are making for a nearby township. |
22:00 |
Volunteers
with torches searching fence line. Holmes with Ryan |
“What are you
looking for Ryan?” RYAN: “Fence
cuts. Cattle signs… anything they would have left behind while passing
through a fence. You know they
sometimes wrap toilet paper around the fences as a marker so if they’re
trying to get away quickly in the dark, it’s an easy marker for them to know
where they can escape to”. |
22:21 |
|
JONATHAN
HOLMES: This time it’s not a serious
attack, just a break in while the residents were out. |
22:44 |
Roberts
in car |
TREVOR ROBERTS:
“Okay, they’ve found a laptop bag. Did
you hear? Are you on radio?” |
22:51 |
|
RYAN: “Yeah.” TREVOR ROBERTS:
“Okay fine. The chances |
22:54 |
|
still remain
they’re going to run this way, so our action must carry on. We’ve got lots of people down there as well
so we’re covered. Okay are you ready?” |
22:56 |
Night
patrol continues |
Music |
23:10 |
|
JONATHAN
HOLMES: But the threat to farmers’
lives is as great as ever. In the
brief time we spent in South Africa, seven people were murdered in farm
attacks. The argument about what
motivates these crimes goes on. |
23:13 |
Holmes
on veranda with Jo-An and Tessa |
JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “My personal opinion about this is that these farm attacks are
partially motivated by money, greed, and partially about politics, you know
the situation in our country. Not only
do they kill, but the way they kill.
They torture you, they hurt you, and this is, this is hate. This is
political hate”. |
23:34 |
Holmes
and Mtika walking in Diepsloot |
JONATHAN
HOLMES: It’s a view that’s echoed,
unexpectedly, by my guide through the alleyways of Diepsloot, Golden
Mtika. He says he knows several gang
members who’ve taken part in farm attacks. GOLDEN MTIKA:
“Most often these crimes they don’t |
24:02 |
Mtika |
just end up
being clean crimes. They end up
killing the person as well”. JONATHAN HOLMES:
“Why?” GOLDEN MTIKA:
“Sometimes through resistance, that the farmer does not want to give them
what they want. Even if he has or he
doesn’t have, they would use force on him and they end up killing the
person. You see. And some of them, they have that past
ideology of saying, you know, the farmers took our land for free and when
they go there they take out the anger on them”. |
24:19 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“So you think there is a racial…” GOLDEN MTIKA:
“Yes. There is that racial element in it as well. |
24:45 |
|
It’s a thing of
the past that was there and is still continuing in the form of robberies,
yeah but it is there. It is s there”. |
24:51 |
Drone
over township |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
The shadow of their bitterly divided past still hangs over all South
Africans, black and white, poor and prosperous. |
25:02 |
Drove
over Fochville |
[Hymn singing] |
25:20 |
|
An hour’s drive
away from Diepsloot, |
25:26 |
Fochville
church congregation |
the burghers of
Fochville gather each Sunday to pray for forgiveness and survival. For more
than a century the Dutch reformed Church of South Africa provided the
theological bedrock upon which apartheid was built. God created separate races, it told its flock,
and separate they should stay. |
25:28 |
Minister
preaches to congregation |
Its ministers no
longer preach that message. But there are no black faces here. These people know their Bible: Exodus 34, verse 7: “The Lord God visits
the sins of the fathers on their children and their children’s children”. |
25:55 |
Tessa
playing violin in. church |
[Violin music] |
26:19 |
|
JONATHAN
HOLMES: Many younger Afrikaners have
already left the church and the country too.
If she has her way, Tessa Engelbrecht, devout believer though she is,
will follow soon – perhaps to Australia. TESSA
ENGELBRECHT: “Yes I would like that. |
26:26 |
Tessa
interview |
Then I could
prepare a place for my mum and dad in case they decided one day that they
would come over to Australia, then I would know there is a place for
them. But for me I wouldn’t even think
twice if I got the chance”. |
26:56 |
Engelbrecht
family in church |
JONATHAN
HOLMES: Like his father before him,
Jo-an is a respected elder of the church.
His roots here are generations deep. |
27:04 |
Drone
over maize field |
It’s just a few
weeks since his parents’ murder. He’ll
get the harvest in he says and then decide what to do. It won’t be easy. |
27:14 |
Jo-An
with Holmes in field |
JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “If you’ve been on the farm for 40 years, two generations, and
you’ve put a lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears into the farm, you just
don’t pack up and leave”. |
27:29 |
Harvest
shots |
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“What would make you stay or what would make you move? How are you going to make that decision?” JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “Well it all depends on the government. If Present Ramaphosa is willing to step up
and address |
27:50 |
|
the situation in
our country, the crime and the corruption, I will be more than willing to
stay, but at this point everything is just going south”. |
28:01 |
|
JONATHAN HOLMES:
“So if it goes on like that?” JO-AN
ENGELBRECHT: “What future is there for my children? There’s no future here.” |
28:12 |
Holmes
and Jo-an in field |
Music |
28:21 |
Credit
start over maize field |
Reporter - Jonathan Holmes Producer - Alex Barry Camera - Greg Nelson Editor - Garth Thomas Executive
Producer -
Marianne Leitch foreign
correspondent ©
2018 |
28:29 |
Outpoint
after credits |
|
28:49 |