The continuing racism, segregation, human rights violation and political intolerance showed its ugly head in the Midvaal area again on Sunday, 6th October 2013 when the ANC Volunteers embarked on a door to door voter registration campaign in the farm areas in this municipal area. Very painful and saddening stories were told by some of the farm workers on how bad they were treated by their farmers and the general issues of poor working conditions and related matters. What shocked us most was when we requested permission to enter one of these farms from its owner for a door to door and were denied entry. The farm owner told us how he owned that land, told us to bring all our about 36 IDs (of volunteers) which he would take to the police station to be verified (to check if we are not criminals) after which he would then decide if he allowed us entry into his farm to speak to the farm workers about voter registration or not. He refused to speak with us in English and demanded to be spoken to in Afrikaans, a first sign that were in for a big trouble in the land which we all should share and live together as South Africans. When asked about when we can come see the farm workers, he said because he was busy, we may visit sometime in January 2014. We were later told by the neighbouring farm dwellers that the very same farmer had denied the mobile clinic an access into his farm and thereby denying his farm workers the basic service that he cannot provide himself. This lead to the farm workers walking long distances to reach this freely government provided services. We will be taking this matter up with the IEC so as to ensure that every eligible voter is registered to vote in the Midvaal area and would further ensure that they voted and voted for the ANC. We will further be taking the Human Rights Commission on board on these and other matters. We are aware that there were some of the farm workers and plot dwellers in Midvaal who are denied their right to register to vote and to vote on the election day and have fought against these actions before and won.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 07:49:16 +0000