Tuesday, 5 July, 20052100 BST on BBC Two

DO THESE MINORITY FARMING PASTORALS, WHO FEED THE MAJORITY OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICA COMMUNITY, DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS?

White farmers in South Africa still own 75% of the country. And more than 1,500 of them have been murdered in the past decade.

EDITOR: IS IT UP TO THE BOERS TO GIVE THE LAND BACK THAT THEY HAVE CULTIVATED FOR SCORES OF GENERATIONS SINCE THE 1600'S. TO SAY THAT THE BOERS STOLE THE LAND FROM THE BLACK TRIBES IS A MYTH, ONE THAT HAS BEEN FABRICATED BY THE ANC SINCE 1912. COULD YOU IMAGINE THE CHAOS THIS WORLD WOULD BE IN IF WE ALL STARTING CLAIMING THE LAND OF OUR ANCESTORS. BUT EVEN SO THE BOERS MOVED INTO UNCHARTERED LAND DURING THE GREAT TREK. THEY ONLY MET THE BLACK TRIBES COMING DOWN FROM THE NORTH AT FISH RIVER, SO IT IS NONSENSE THAT THEY WERE THERE BEFORE THE BOERS. THEY LOST THE BATTLE (BLOOD RIVER) WHICH WAS FOUGHT FAIR AND SQUARE AS FAR AS WARS GO. THE BOERS HAVE AS MUCH RIGHT TO THE LAND OF THEIR ANCESTORS.

Louis Meintjies runs the operational centre of his local farmers' self-defence unit.

He, like many others, is in constant fear of his life, but is determined not to be forced from his land. "I love this land just as much as anybody else," he says. "They won't kick me off... we will fight."

But the battle is daunting, and law enforcement is scarce.

Many farmers have turned to their local Commando for help, a paramilitary unit that dates back to the Boer war.

This World's team also meets Captain Manie van Zyl, head of the Serious Violent Crimes Unit, an under-resourced corps of eight men charged with investigating farm attacks, in a part of South Africa where the struggle over land has already begun to resemble a bloody war.

Bearing witness to such crimes against fellow whites drove Captain van Zyl to a nervous breakdown.

"I couldn't take anymore," he says. "Seeing day and night every day, the brutal killings."

Yes if his land claim is so ligitimate why have the ANC done nothing about it, surely they are legally, according to their own law, allowed to literally give this man his land back. WHY the beaurocratic hogwash!!!! Land claimant Payete Ndlovana can only visit graves of his ancestors through an electrified corridor

Payete Ndlovana's land was taken from his family under apartheid in 1973. Payete was thrown in jail and his land was sold to a white farmer.

When the ANC government came to power over a decade ago, Payete lodged a claim to get his land back, but since then, the land commission has done nothing for him.

"When we voted in 1994, we thought the situation would mean that we and the farmers were going to share 50/50," he says.

Against this background of increased land hunger and frustration with the pace of land reform, some see the killings as a straightforward Zimbabwe-style bid to intimidate whites off their farms.

But black farmers are coming under attack now too, so what does this mean?

Are these farm attacks really a campaign to drive whites off the land, or are they a symptom of the country's persistent crime wave?

Blood and Land follows Louis Meintjies, Captain van Zyl and Payete Ndlovana over a bloody fortnight.

Blood and Land was broadcast in the UK on Tuesday, 5 July, 2005, at 2100 BST on BBC Two.

Producer/director: Clifford Bestall for Films of Record
Executive producer: Karen O'Connor

By Clifford Bestall
Producer/director of Blood and Land http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4630665.stm

White farmers say that more South African farmers have died in the last 10 years, than in the rest of the African continent during the wars of independence.

When you look at brave men like this their light shines and the corrupt leaders souls become even more overshadowed with the dark clouds of evil. Under apartheid, Captain van Zyl worked for the security police

Monday morning parade at the Serious Violent Crimes Unit (SVC) and Captain Manie van Zyl reads out the crime report for the past weekend.

All in all 14 murders and 18 rapes, followed by a host of lesser violent crimes for Mpumulanga, one of South Africa's nine provinces.

Captain van Zyl is the longest serving member of the SVC, an under-resourced unit of eight men who investigate farm attacks.

Such crimes are virtually hidden in South Africa.

More than 1,500 white farmers have been murdered over the past decade of peaceful majority rule in South Africa.

Cashing in on the Land Grabbing Scheme that Mugabe, now Mbeki is instigating. In 1994 when apartheid ended, whites owned 80% of the land.

Payete Ndlovana and his wife Martha look at their ancestors' land through an electric fence

The new government promised land would belong to all who worked it.

But this has not happened and whites still own 75% of the country.

Payete Ndlovana lodged a claim in 1994 to get land back that was taken from his family 20 years before.

"When we voted in 1994, we thought the situation would mean that we and the farmers were going to share 50/50," he says.

The farm in question was recently sold to another white farmer, who has begun to mine sand, rapidly turning the area into a wasteland.

Now, day in and day out, truckload by truckload, the farmer carries away the very soil that Payete considers to be his.

But he does not know how to stop it.

He bought his land lawfully or he inherited his land lawfully, now he is the criminal and the one targeted like so many of his kind with the MYTH that he stole land from the Black tribes!!! It's all part of the government's action against the white farmer to get the land from him
White farmer, Louis Meintjies

Miles away, against this background of increased land hunger and frustration with the pace of land reform, the violence continues.

Captain van Zyl hunts for clues at a farmhouse where the owner and his wife were murdered.

"The two elderly people were literally chopped up," he says. "The old man was stabbed 38 times."

Other victims the captain has seen have been burned with smoothing irons, poisoned, raped, or had boiling water poured down their throats.

"You can't rest," he says, traumatised by what he has witnessed. "How can you put your head to a pillow and sleep? Why the brutal killing?"

White farmers say that more South African farmers have died in the last 10 years, than in the rest of the African continent during the wars of independence.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) believes that the government is behind the attacks.

Local Kommando units meet with police to search for farm attackers

"I believe it's all part of the government's action against the white farmer to get the land from him," says Louis Meintjies, who runs the operational centre of his local farmers' self-defence unit.

He feels that because the South African constitution stands in the way of Robert Mugabe-style land grabs, a move to intimidate white farmers into abandoning their land to speed up handovers is under way.

Like all theories of conspiracy, it has a coherence that can absorb many elements of government action into a single covert strategy.

One of the most important of these concerns a mechanism that has allowed white farmers to protect themselves: their Kommando units.

The Kommando is a system of neighbourhood watch that goes back to the Boer War.

The government has begun to force these paramilitary units to disband, for fear they might be used by white right-wing elements.

White farmers want the government to reverse this order and beef up rural policing.

Mugabe is right... 100% right
Land claimant, Payete Ndlovana

A peaceful farm handover in Mpumulanga province is a rare sight. When it occurs, there is often a gathering to celebrate.

Payete goes along to one of these parties to see if he can speak to the chief land claims commissioner.

He finds him, but is not encouraged. The commissioner tells him that land claim procedures take a long time.

Payete feels the ultimate message is clear: land claims will only be settled with willing sellers. The land commission can legally seize a white farmer's land, but has never done so.

By the time he heads home, Payete is convinced the Zimbabwean approach to land reform is what South Africa needs.

"Mugabe is right," he says. "One hundred percent right."

"It must be a human being hating another human being," says Captain van Zyl. But South Africa is not Zimbabwe. And Captain van Zyl is convinced that greed and not revenge drives the violence in Mpumulanga.

In a country where common crime affects everyone, he believes that farm murders will always be part of life in South Africa.

Statistics just released show black farmers are also coming under attack.

The bloody battle for rights and land in South Africa does not seem to be a simple issue of racial tension and ownership.

"It must be a human being hating another human being," says Captain van Zyl.

Blood and Land was broadcast in the UK on Tuesday, 5 July, 2005 at 2100 BST on BBC Two.

THE BOERS HAVE AS MUCH RIGHT TO THE LAND OF THEIR ANCESTORS.