British engineer 'in love' with South Africa, hacked to death for his mobile phone

British engineer 'in love' with South Africa, hacked to death for his mobile phone

A British engineer who moved to a remote farm in South Africa after “falling in love with the country” has been murdered in his own home by a machete-wielding gang who stole just £210 and a mobile phone.

Dan Newling & Erin Conway-Smith | Daily Telegraph.UK | 9:30PM GMT 26 Nov 2012

Chris Preece, 54, was stabbed to death in his kitchen by thieves at Fleur de Lis farm, near Ficksburg, a town along the South Africa-Lesotho border. Police believe he may have stepped outside to investigate a power cut when he was ambushed by three man and dragged back into the house.

His wife Felicity, 56, was also stabbed and suffered a fractured skull after being beaten with a pole - but managed to survive a 12 hour wait for help by bandaging her own head.

It is thought the thieves may have come from neighbouring Lesotho and fled back across the border after the assault. They stole only a wallet containing 3,000 South African rand (£210) and a mobile telephone.

The murder, on Saturday evening, is the latest in a spate of so-called “farm attacks” in South Africa: brutally violent robberies targeting relatively wealthy white farmers.

Welfare State Population Explosion gives rise to Xenophobic violence

Welfare state gives rise to xenophobic violence

Meshack Mabogoane, Business Day
Published: 2010/07/14 07:38:35 AM

THE recent rumours about potential xenophobic violence after the World Cup are a puzzling throwback to a third force that bedevilled the 1980s at the height of opposition to apartheid. The evil has reared its head and smacks, as before, of central levers at work. It also raises questions about the role of security agencies and their part in preventing crime and safeguarding law and order.

Fears of xenophobic attacks are totally unnecessary. The National Intelligence Agency (NIA), police and army must handle delinquency and serious threats to state security — whether they are suspicions, rumours or reality. Any large-scale violence, including xenophobic violence, is their business and they should pre-emptively and promptly deal with any menace.

The head of the police service has already congratulated his troops for victory during the Fifa tournament — much crime was anticipated before the tournament, based on the influx of foreigners and internal experiences.

If the police succeeded at this task, surely they can repeat the feat by pre- empting xenophobic crimes. Stories of potential xenophobic threats follow previous attacks in 2008. While the fires from those attacks were still hot, the state hastily gave explanations and solutions.

The African National Congress (ANC) made xenophobia a “moral” issue, eschewing interpretations that it was based on material causes, such as jobs and housing, which ignite poor and stressed communities anywhere. No mention was made of the ethnic factor, as happens in conflicts, for example, in Nigeria, in the Balkans, and in SA’s history — among native blacks, white burgers and foreigners.

Most unusually, former President Thabo Mbeki interrupted his globetrotting escapades to address the social issue. He held meetings with victims — yet casualties of HIV/AIDS, whose existence and death were denied, still got no attention. Practical results ensued quickly: the speedy issuing of identity documents to foreigners — ready for elections and readier for social grants and citizenship.

With Fifa gone, a huge propaganda vacuum exists which, naturally, must be filled. So xenophobia presents a logical sequel to an international spectacular. Now SA must show it “cares” for foreigners and, because of “impending attacks”, strong official exhortations are made to welcome and integrate them — regardless of deteriorating social, economic and health facilities that are reeling under the weight of an exploding population.

Again, the NIA is facing allegations of an inability to detect xenophobic threats, outdone by ordinary people, including priests who have questionably intervened on security issues affecting foreigners.

'Too Soon to Congratulate ['F***k Off We Are Full'] SA'

“Don’t try to solve your population problem by exporting your excess people to us.”

We are not faced with a single global population problem, but, rather, with about 180 separate national population problems. All population controls must be applied locally; local governments are the agents best prepared to choose local means.

Means must fit local traditions. For one nation to attempt to impose its ethical principles on another is to violate national sovereignty and endanger international peace. The only legitimate demand that nations can make on one another is this:

“Don’t try to solve your population problem by exporting your excess people to us.”
-- There Is No Global Population Problem, by Garrett Hardin

It’s Too Soon to Congratulate South Africa

The World Cup hosts hunker down for a wave of xenophobic violence.

By Susana Ferreira, Foreign Policy Dispatch
July 12, 2010

DIEPSLOOT, SOUTH AFRICA—Late one brisk night in mid-June, Bongani Mdiki was having a beer at Willie's Tavern in Diepsloot, a township north of Johannesburg, South Africa, when men burst in to break his head. After forcing their way in, the group of at least 15 men stripped the tiny one-room bar and its 20-odd patrons of all they had. It was the second such robbery at Willie's Tavern in a month, and this time the burglars made off with a generator, about $264 worth of Black Label beer and snacks, and $330 in cash. Then they approached Mdiki for his phone -- and that's when one of them pulled out a machete.

Mdiki, a baker who is employed off and on, is convinced the robbers were Zimbabweans -- hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of whom have come to South Africa in recent years, fleeing desperate conditions at home. "These guys aren't coming for job; they're coming for fight," Mdiki muttered, shaking his head softly. He says he could tell they were foreign by the language they spoke. And he made a dire promise: "After World Cup, [the Zimbabweans] must pack and go."

SARS, CIPRO & Illegal Immigrant Corruption Hijacking the State

“South Africa risks gaining a reputation as one of the most corrupt countries in the world if we do not nip the scourge in the bud. In the midst of abject poverty and hunger, greed and the speedy accumulation of wealth have become the most defining characteristics of South Africa's post-apartheid democracy.” -- Sunday Times Editorial, Nov 22, 2009

“Corruption in the public service is so rife, so endemic, so all-pervasive, that ordinary South Africans regard it as the normal way of doing things. In the municipalities, virtually no tender is awarded without some politician’s or official’s relative, friend or business associate being in on the game. If they are not, a bribe is paid. In queues for government services, even when dealing with the police, bribes change hands as a matter of course.”

“That culture starts at the top and permeates the whole system. Morality, values, have all disappeared. It is everyone for himself. That is why ministers believe they have a “right” to put extras in their official cars, such as television sets. It is the culture.”

“This is how the failed states of Nigeria, the DR Congo and others were born. The culture of bribery, lack of service delivery and impunity of public officials took hold. That is where we are headed unless something is done — soon.”
-- -- Justice Malala, Black Politicians Fiddle as SA Burns

Local Politicians & Labour Brokers Inciting Xenophobia Over Scarce Resources

Facing the future: A S. African mother and child in the Stofland informal settlement in De Doorns, following Xenophobic attacks in November 2009. [David Harrison]

On 28 November 2009, Vice President Motlanthe blamed farmers for farm murders:

“Some of the most brutal farm murders are committed by foreign nationals, who were brutally exploited and made to toil without any remuneration. The day when they demand remuneration, they are reported (by farmers) to the law enforcement units and are duly arrested and are sent back to their countries of origin.

Magnet for Immigration: 3 - 6 million Illegal Immigrants in South Africa

“For the World Cup, they give a visa to everybody.” -- Khola, the Ghanaian [Protest Sign: Land of Opportunity for Murderers, Rapists and Thieves. Lone Smallholders Protestor Against Crime Magnet for Immigration: 3 - 6 million Illegal Immigrants in South Africa]

Perspectives on illegal immigrants as a source of crime and unemployment; World Cup as a source of illegal immigration; number of illegal immigrants in South Africa, etc.

South Africa: Africa's ‘Magnet for Migration’, M & G

South Africa, the strongest economy on the continent, has an estimated three million to five million undocumented African immigrants in a population of 47-million, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations, and their presence has already sparked violence.

Sitaka Shange, an office worker, said that until the government addressed crime and deported illegal immigrants already in the country, she wouldn't consider South Africa ready to host the World Cup.

"They come here and take jobs," Shange said. "They will agree to a salary that South Africans will never agree to."

Despite the government's promise to curb the flow, Khola, the Ghanaian, seemed to think the World Cup meant open borders. "For the World Cup, they give a visa to everybody," he said.

Home affairs in the dark about number of illegal immigrants, M & G

The Department of Home Affairs has no idea how many illegal immigrants are in South Africa: “I don't know. If somebody's here illegally, how do I know they are here? I do not know, that's an honest answer.”

The South African Police Service, in its 2008/09 annual report, said there could be as many as six million “undocumented” foreigners in the country: “According to various estimates, the number of undocumented immigrants in South Africa may vary between three and six million people.”

SA: 640,000 Asylum Seekers Backlog | Israel IDF: 'One million African refugees headed for Israel'

Reports emanating from the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) indicated that about a fifth of white South Africans had immigrated over the past 10 years with the main reasons given by immigrants were crime and affirmative action, so said Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon in Cape Town. He accuses the ANC government of being indifferent to the lot of minorities, especially whites, and has expressed hostility to their interest » » » » Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB): 27 August 2009 ruling: Brandon Huntley

Interior Minister Eli Yishai is in trouble with Israels liberals, for stating that Israel is 'not an asylum state'; by refusing to grant permanent residence to 1,200 children of foreign workers who were born in Israel. He clearly states what the politically correct brigade say, is -- according to them -- better of left unsaid.

"I know it's not popular, but my job is to take care of the citizens of Israel and our nation," Yishai said on Army Radio. "It is no secret that if we continue to abandon the borders and allow the entrance of foreigners into the country and don't - call it what you will - deport, remove or return them to their homelands or if we are too 'good-natured,' as too may of us are, in a few years we will find hundreds and thousands of them here, and that is a threat to the Zionist project in Israel. We will lose our country."

Wow!! When will we find politicians in South Africa elected to the Ministry of Home Affairs with such HONESTY and CANDOUR, and CONCERN FOR SOUTH AFRICAN CITIZENS, AND SOUTH AFRICA!!?

World Cup 2010: Magnet for Africa's Uneducated & Impoverished

“For the World Cup, they give a visa to everybody.” -- Khola, the Ghanaian [Protest Sign: Land of Opportunity for Murderers, Rapists and Thieves. Lone Smallholders Protestor Against Crime Magnet for Immigration: 3 - 6 million Illegal Immigrants in South Africa]

Figures vary, but as many as 3m Zimbabweans may have made the cross-border journey under cover of darkness, one of the largest exoduses Africa has seen. More recently they have been joined by immigrants from Somalia, Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique. Government sources now claim that there are at least 6m foreign nationals working illegally in South Africa, representing 14% of the population.

‘Up to 1,000 illegal migrants are coming to the Western Cape every day, looking for work and a new start. By the time the World Cup is upon us that figure will have increased dramatically. Imagine the 2010 games as an enormous magnet for Africa’s uneducated and impoverished and then imagine how bad life will become for these immigrants who come here to these townships and camps with the hope of finding work but find only exploitation and xenophobia. The situation is much broader than the government recognises.’ -- Brian Hanekom, Passop.

“Over there is a rubbish dump where Zimba-bwean and Congolese immigrants queue up every Friday to eat, waiting for the trucks to arrive to feed their families. I have been there for scraps, as have all of my family. I see women eat straight from the ground, rotten cabbage and potatoes, scraping fruit out of tins with their hands. The council has told us we must take the rotten food away from the dump and eat it out of sight of the police.”
-- Anita Makauto, Refugee