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“THEY BEAT HIM with a pole… and you could hear the bones breaking,” said Debbie Turner, recounting her husband’s murder in a slow, defiant voice.
She refuses to talk about him in the past tense and sleeps with a photo of him close by.
“I miss him so terribly — it’s just so hard,” she said, sitting in front of the frail-care unit that has been her home since the attack at their farm.
Robert “Oki” Turner, 66, was beaten to death before her eyes six months ago on their isolated stretch of mountain land in South Africa’s northeastern Limpopo province.
He was one of the latest victims of a long campaign of violence against the country’s farmers who are largely white.
The rural crime epidemic has inflamed political and racial tensions nearly a quarter-of-a-century after the fall of apartheid.
Farm murders are just one issue that reveals how South Africa is struggling with violence, an economic slowdown and divisions along race lines.
The Turners moved to the verdant region, half-way between Kruger national park and Zimbabwe, some 30 years ago.
On their property, which spans dozens of acres, they grew gum trees which they sold to craftsmen or for firewood.
“Until about four or five years ago, we were very open. We didn’t have a key for our house — we would go away and nothing would have happened,” she said.
But then the extreme violence that had long afflicted major cities engulfed rural areas like theirs.
Break-ins, hostage takings and killings became common — with attackers often making off with just a few hundred rand (less than $20), a mobile phone or a hunting rifle.
The Turners were targeted after nightfall on June 14 when two armed men stormed their farm. Debbie was alone after her husband stepped out to fix a water tap.
Savagely beaten
“They said ‘we want money’. I said I haven’t got money,” recounted Debbie.
“They dragged me all over the house and put me under the shower and turned it on and left me for 15 minutes.
“Then they decided to try to rape me. I said ‘please don’t rape me, I’ve got HIV’.”
Some time later, Oki was found slumped motionless covered in blood after being savagely beaten by the attackers searching for the key to the couple’s safe.
He died in hospital a few hours later.
Dozens of white farmers are murdered in similar circumstances in South Africa every year.
In the absence of detailed statistics, the scope and scale of the crimes has become a battleground.
AfriForum, a pressure group that advocates on behalf of the country’s nine-percent-strong white population, is one of the forces seeking to shape the debate around farm murders.
“Farmers are living in remote areas, they are far from police stations,” said the group’s vice president, Ernst Roets.
“There are political factors that play a role here. We are concerned about hate speech, political leaders who… would say for example ‘the white farmers should be blamed for everything’.”
He is particularly damning of Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of South Africa’s radical left, who has called on his followers to “retake the land” from whites.
In 2012 President Jacob Zuma sang a struggle-era song containing the words “shoot the farmer, shoot the Boer”.
Agriculture, like much of South Africa’s economy, remains in the hands of the white descendants of colonial-era settlers.
White farmers control 73 percent of arable land in the country compared with 85 percent when apartheid ended in 1994, according to a recent study.
Calls for “radical economic transformation” to benefit the black majority have gained traction as unemployment has soared.
They are frequently coupled with accusations that the white minority control a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth.
‘We built this country’
That narrative has alarmed many white rural communities.
“We’re being hunted,” said Pauli, a 43-year-old farmer who declined to give her surname.
More militant white farmers describe the violence they face as “genocide” and use the casually racist rhetoric of the apartheid era.
“They (black people) truly think that we have stolen the country from them,” Limpopo-based farmer Gerhardus Harmse told AFP.
“We built this country, show me anything, any place that the blacks built — there isn’t any. They cannot build, they destroy.”
The radical fringe has become increasingly vocal.
Last month, some supporters flew the flag of the old white-minority government during a protest against farm murders.
The demonstration called on the government to guarantee farmers special protection — something that police minister Fikile Mbalula categorically refused.
“All deaths of all South Africans must be met with disgust,” wrote Mbalula in a Twitter post. “My problem is that farm murders are racialised and politicised.”
While black farmers have so far been largely reluctant to march with their white colleagues, they face many of the same risks.
“We don’t feel protected by the government,” said Vuyo Mahlati, president of the African Farmers Association of South Africa.
“We need to deal with everyone trying to utilise farming as a centre of a right-wing political discourse. That we are not going to allow.”
‘I will go back’
Feeling abandoned by the government, many white farmers have taken steps to protect themselves.
Some patrol their land under moonlight, pistols tucked into their belts, to deter would-be attackers.
Others undergo commando training in anticipation of the worst.
Among them is Marli Swanepoel, 37, who owns a farm in Limpopo.
“You have to be prepared. You have to protect yourself,” said the mother-of-three.
Hans Bergmann was recently assaulted on his farm, but takes a different approach.
Some weeks ago, armed men broke in to rob his safe, tied him up and shot him in the foot.
“In South Africa everybody thinks farmers have a lot of money,” he said.
Bergmann, who is in his sixties, declines to carry a gun or abandon his land.
“I just accept it… where do I go from here if I leave the farm?” he said.
Debbie Turner is scathing of the police who have yet to catch her husband’s killers — or even take a statement from her.
“It shows that what happened that night doesn’t mean anything to these people,” she said.
“I’m angry against those people who killed my husband. Sometimes I wish they could hang them.”
But she will not be leaving any time soon, vowing: “One day I will go back to the mountain.”
- © AFP 2017.
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Not one word on the housing crisis in this article.Why would any teacher want to work in Dublin for example with exorbitant rents and virtually no prospect of getting on the housing ladder.No wonder places such as Dubai are benifitting from our education system.
@Willie Marty: apparently they’re not buying houses in dubai either as the union is highlighting the problems of returning?
@brian o’leary: ??
No full time jobs for teachers, but let’s pay out hundreds of thousands to an RTE executive who was responsible for the Deceit, Lies & Misinformation around salaries, refused to attend the PAC, goes out sick for months & is then rewarded by the “new transparent regime” who hide their rewarding for incompetence, behind a Non Disclosure Agreement. What a mess of a country, Simon Harris allowing the whole RTE debacle continue, while schools can’t even get full time teachers. The moral of the story is, the more crooked, corrupt, incompetent you are, the more likely you are to succeed in Ireland, the days of being honest & hard working in Ireland are only for the fools.
@SV3tN8M4: hospitals taking on foreign staff…Irish Nurses in Sydney a few years ago holding signs saying ‘give is a reason to come home’
We are speeding towards an education crisis in Ireland. Just as decades of FF and FG has brought us a healthcare crisis and a housing crisis, their policies are also destroying education. We have packed schools with 30 or more students in each class. The number of students with additional needs is increasing as supports available to them decrease. Teachers are increasingly expected to parent, as well as educate. Norma Foley’s phoney war on phones is a great example of this.
@Keyser Söze: You do realize that poorly educated children become adults who don’t necessarily practice scrutiny and skepticism, may focus on convenience and compliance (where parents are unable or unwilling to fill such gaps) and thus become sheeple citizens?
Limit career breaks to after 35. Went into a bar in Perth. 8 Irish teachers working there all under 40 and all on career breaks from teaching. Teachers with 3-4 years working should not be allowed to take career breaks. Do the job or leave, get out. Politicians do not set a good example.
@Alan Cooke: one important reason why young teachers take career breaks abroad is to try and build up a lump sum for a deposit on a house. This issue is directly related to the housing crisis.
@Alan Cooke: won’t make a difference. We’ve had two teachers just resign after failing to get a career break extension and stay in Dubai. A permanent job is not what it once was if you can’t get somewhere to live. And if they do come back they know they’ll get another job no problem.
@Alan Cooke: Nonsense argument. I am teaching 15 years, the last 5 being in Sydney. I was stuck in the Irish system with no chance of progression because the Irish system values length in the job over efficacy. One year in Australia and I was earning 40K more than in Ireland, I pay 30% tax and I have been promoted twice. The Irish system is years behind England, Australia etc.
The worst minister we’ve ever had. Let’s ban mobile phones. Which she knows won’t work at second level. Let’s continue to make allowances in state exams for Covid years after the fact. Let’s give free books to those who don’t need them to win some votes. And on and on it goes
Re-hire Enogh Burke.
@Karin Ahlers: We’re desperate but not that desperate!
@Karin Ahlers:
Haha hahaha No school on earth would touch him.
Even the head of the famously fanatical Westboro Baptist church in Kansas said he goes too far.
@Karin Ahlers: lol… culty lunatic cant even get an open comments section!
@jak: he was locked up because he’s an attention hoor who disrupted a school. If he walked into a school in the US without the right to be there he might have been shot.
I’m currently a Pme student in year 2, the salt in the wound regarding the tremendous cost is the utter irrelevance of the content of the course to instill the necessary skills to actually teach. Countless non value add essays. You can tell when it was expanded to 2 years they scraped the barrel for content, at least 60% fluff which enormous overlap/repetition of content. That’s what I find most demoralising, 13000 euros for fluff. Keep the money if that’s their primary concern, which I suspect it is, but my god lean up the program and trim the morbid obesity of fat that is currently contained within.
Maybe change the pay scales so they get more starting off and less later on as they’re much less likely to go off to dubai etc when they’re 40+ and have a mortgage and kids etc?
@brian o’leary: If they’re only getting partial hours then even with elevating the pay scale teachers are starting out on miniscule money. And theres no requirement on principals to increase those teachers’ hours over time either. Why would you stay?
@Mindful Muinteoir: a new type of permanent contract could be created, where a teacher could work in a few different schools within an area?
@brian o’leary: who would pay for the exhorbitant cost of travelling to several different schools? Also would timetabling give a person time to travel between classes?
@Ashling Fenton: exorbitant? My town has 5 secondary schools within walking/cycling distance? Milage could be orovided, with scheduling keeping travel to a minimum.
My cousin worked “temporarily” for 12 years and missed out on pension contributions and mortgage opportunities.
She then emigrated.
@Padraig O’Brien: This ^^. The crisis is in availability of dogs-body teachers willing to take shite hours or last-minute day-to-day subbing. Treat teachers & teaching with respect.
Point one of the payscale while paying Dublin rents lol…doesn’t take Einstein to work out the lack of new teachers in urban areas. After all those years in college…get out of here and onto a plane to a country that won’t bleed you dry in your younger years and will pay you well and not tax you to death while destroying you with high rents.
Some ideas to help solve the problem. Teachers need to be able to change schools without having to give up their CID. Access to redeployment must improve. Extra pay needs to be given to those who have extra qualifications. Posts need to return to being based on seniority. Teachers who return to the profession should not have to start at point one of the scale again. School inspections need to be stopped.
@peter lynch: I agreed with all of that bar posts being based on seniority. The fact that Brenda who has been doing a mediocre job for 18 years is automatically entitled to a post is the kind of thing that drove me to Sydney. Ridiculous notion that you won’t find in any leading education system.
I also disagree with school inspections being stopped however, let’s make them about pedagogy and making teachers better rather than catching people out who don’t have paperwork completed. The fact that most inspectors are woefully out of date with current research on best practice doesn’t help either.
@Mark De Brún: needs to go back to seniority as interview system is abused & regardless of who gets them in current system once they have them they cannot be taken away so productivity will reduce regardless as it can now potentially remain with the same person for 30 years or more. A more regular change is more of a healthy environment where experience is respected. I agree with inspections if inspectors have significant teaching experience & training done
I’m 86 years old.My father was a Classics master,brothers,Grand parents,great grandparents were school teachers.I would respectfully suggest that the calibre of those graduating from Colleges are often not suitable or committed to their profession .If you were studying for Nursing you would have assessment en route as to your suitability ,comittement etc.and in some Asian country’s would be required to give at least 5 years of work in your own country before you went abroad,
Part of the problem not mentioned in the article is the fact that teachers can take a career break of up to 5 year’s and up to 10 year’s over the course of their career.
What other occupation in the country is allowed to do that and then expect to be somehow comeback home from wherever and keep their seniority and pay scale parity. There are many newly qualified teachers who can’t get teaching posts because of this ridiculous situation.
@Chaotic State: public sector job rules are as dark and mysterious as the social welfare system. If you were the right age at the right time and knew the right people who knew people to help you learn the loop holes which existed it would certainly have gotten you very far in the sector with a cozy number. Not as many today but back in mid 90′s dear god a lad with half an intercert with the right neighbour would have made a board of management!
The low ballers of middle isle Ireland.
They will have to ship in teachers from India soon like that what’s be done in every other job, no Irish will be left in this rip off country
The only one’s benefitting from this system are property and land owners
Unless parents stop trying to dictate how teachers teach and raise their kids to behave in public, there will continue to be a teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
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