The Democratic Alliance is to take the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to the newly established Equality Court for incitement to violence.
This comes after members of the tripartite alliance brandished posters saying "Kill the boer, kill the farmer" outside the Phalaborwa magistrate's court in Limpopo on Tuesday. Other posters waved outside the court read "Tired with the boers" and "Castrate the boers".
The angry ANC, SACP and Cosatu members were protesting over the brutal murder of former construction worker Nelson Chisale, who was fed to lions near Hoedspruit last month, allegedly by his former boss Mark Scott-Crossley, 35, and three other men, Simon Mathebula, 43, Richard Mathebula, 41, and Robert Mnisi, 34.
The murder charge against Mnisi was withdrawn on Tuesday, apparently after he agreed to turn state witness. Last year, the South African Human Rights Commission declared the slogan "Kill the boer, kill the farmer" to be hate speech. "It was outrageous for those slogans to have been used," DA spokesperson Sandra Botha said on Wednesday. "We should be getting rid of racism, instead they (the tripartite alliance) are using slogans that have been ruled as hate speech." Botha said that only one person accused of the murder was white, and that the crime was not racially motivated. "Whenever a white person is accused of a crime (against a black person) then the slogans are used against a section of the population, the farmers," said Botha.
She added that Scott-Crossley was not a farmer, but owned a construction company which he ran from a smallholding. However, the tripartite alliance has come out fighting, saying the DA is politicking during an election year.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said: "The question they are raising is about members using the slogans, whereas it is (actually) about one human being throwing another to the lions. "Our primary focus at the protest was to highlight the barbarism of the people who allegedly fed a man to the lions," he said. Ngonyama added that the DA was trying to "hide" the killing by only highlighting the sloganeering.
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said: "We have made it quite clear that 'kill the boer, kill the farmer' is not and was never a Cosatu slogan. We understand how those protesters were feeling, and we believe in the rule of the law, and that law should take its course."
SACP spokesperson Mazibuko Jara called the DA "melodramatic" and "opportunistic". "The DA is trying to divert attention away from racism, the exploitation of farmworkers and violence on farms. The DA should condemn these atrocities and enter into dialogue with the people affected," Jara said.
Source: IoL
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