White farmers caught inSouth African race war

14 August 1998

White farmers caught in
South African race war

WHITE farmers in South Africa are to withhold taxes in protest against the Governments failure to combat a spate of racial attacks which has left 570 farmers dead in the past four years.

The Guardian reports that opposition parties claim President Mandela is not concerned about the victims because they are white. There are suspicions that the pattern of killings is consistent with a race war.

Some 87% of the land in South Africa was in the hands of just 12% of the population when apartheid ended in 1994. The process of shifting land ownership is acknowledged to be slow and is thought to be an underlying motive for the attacks.

• The Guardian 14/08/98 page 13