by Jhua-nine Wyrley-Birch

As a civil rights organisation, AfriForum conducts the battle against farm murders and farm attacks on various levels.

In addition to the pressure placed on government to declare farm murders as priority crime, the civil rights watchdog also takes the lead to put farm murders in the spotlight internationally by presenting reports and submissions at various international conferences.

Lorraine Claasen, a crime analyst and researcher of the AfriForum Research Institute (ANI), recently presented a paper in the USA at the annual International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA) Training Conference.

IACA is a professional association founded in 1990 with the aim of providing training, information, networking opportunities and professional development resources to individuals in the crime analysis profession.

Claasen’s presentation dealt with farm murders and farm attacks in South Africa. She gave an overview of the crisis and threw light on the challenges that the SAPS and other role-players have to face to conduct effective crime analysis to proactively address the occurrence of this crime. She also referred to the government’s handling of farm murders, who have never earnestly pronounced them against these crimes.

According to Claasen, she received positive feedback on her submission because many people do not know what is happening in South Africa. In her submission she referred to the Potgieter family, who was cruelly murdered on their farm near Lindley in the Free State in 2010.

Attie Potgieter (40) was stabbed 151 times with a garden fork, pangas and other tools. His wife, Wilna (36), and daughter Willemien (2) had to look on.

Then Willemien was hacked with a sharp object on the head, shot in the head and thrown into a box in the outside room. After Wilna had to look on while her husband and child were killed, she was also hacked on the head and taken to the farmhouse where she was shot in the neck.

‘Americans are very uninformed about South African crimes and do not know anything about farm murders. Most were shocked at the extreme levels of brutality and torture associated with farm attacks,’ said Claasen.

Claasen has also consulted other international crime analysts such as Dermot Shea, the New York Police Department’s chief of crime control strategies, about other types of crime analysis that could help to put an end to this type of violence in South Africa. ‘Information is a very important element of crime prevention. We do not have to redesign the wheel when it comes to crime analysis. There are structures and people who are willing to help us, but buy-in from government and police is essential if we really want to put an end to farm killings.’

After her presentation, Claasen was invited to deliver a speech about farm murders and crime analysis at a college in California next year.