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Mr. Smit’s was the second farm killing in the Western Cape province in less than a month, said Jeanne Boshoff, a spokeswoman for a farming association, Agri Wes-Cape. In a statement addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa, the group asked why farmers should remain in South Africa if their safety, as well as that of their workers, could not be guaranteed.
Residents of a nearby black township started moving on to Mr. Smit’s farm last year as the long-running debate over land began heating up in the months before general elections in May, in which voters elected to keep Mr. Ramaphosa in office.
In December 2017, the long-governing African National Congress, or A.N.C., endorsed the expropriation of land without compensation, although the policy has yet to become law.
Mr. Ramaphosa, who supports the policy, has tried to reassure anxious farmers, business groups and foreign investors that it would be carried out without the kind of violent land seizures that occurred in neighboring Zimbabwe almost two decades ago, a policy that devastated its economy.
The farmer was forced to get a court interdict against the squatters. Sadly, the letter of the law couldn’t prevent Smit from meeting a brutal fate. Police have confirmed that four armed men gained access to the wine estate via an unlocked door, before opening fire on the 62-year-old. His wife and a family friend survived the attack.
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/stellenbosch-farm-murder-stefan-smit-killed-following-land-grabs-dispute/