Meanwhile, white protesters who took part in the #BlackMonday protests against farm murders have appeared in courts around the country, or have received summons to appear, on charges that they contravened the Regulation of Gatherings Act and the National Road Traffic Act.
Malema nevertheless ripped into white Afrikaners and the police. “This nonsense that the white Afrikaners were doing here in Tshwane on Monday, we don’t support such nonsense,” Malema declared.
“What was even worse is that police are so scared of white people. Instead of shooting at them with rubber bullets, they were taking the phones of white people and shooting them pictures while they were disrupting the city of Tshwane.
“It was an opportunity for them to test the skin of the white people with a rubber bullet. They missed an opportunity.”
Malema described the police as sell-outs. “These blacks [in the police] are trained by apartheid to suffer from a black hate”.
The ANC accused the ruling party of being “scared of white people” at a recent demonstration. “They must know we are watching them. Even their loud mouth minister who did not instruct them to shoot as these racists who were blocking our roads,” he said.
“Useless police of Tshwane did not do anything against racism, even when they saw it on Monday.
“Useless minister of police did not do anything, even when whites were disrupting us. You know why? The ANC is scared of white people. The ANC is scared of Afrikaners.”
“The regime of the EFF will never be scared of a white person.” Malema warned that the EFF would stage a counter-protest if Afrikaners decided to march again. “We cannot allow white people to do as they wish in this country,” Malema said.
He added: “Let us teach them who owns South Africa.”
Malema also defended his regular chants inciting his followers to kill white farmers. “Why do you think white people will not think they’re superior, when they’re well represented in the national anthem. When we sang the song: ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,’ we were taken to court, the song was banned by the court because they said this song is promoting hatred and division.”
The whites who were arrested following #BlackMonday, were shocked by police brutality. Many are now facing possible prison time as the Gatherings Act provides for prison sentences of up to a year for contraventions.
They are being prosecuted after police allegedly received instructions at national level to arrest those who participated in the protests.
Pieter Wagner, an estate agent and a member of a policing forum, told Afrikaans Sunday Newspaper that he had attended two prayer meetings. Late the next day, the police stormed into his office to “fetch him”.
Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald accused the ANC of double standards. “On a weekly basis, roads are being blocked during disorderly service delivery protests and by other [black] groups such as taxi unions, municipal workers and students … But when white people peacefully protest for legitimate reasons, they get arrested,” Groenewald said.
“We used our right to freedom of expression to protest against the murder of our kin, family and workers, but now the state is even using old apartheid legislation to intimidate people,” he added.
Nationally there have been 341 farm attacks this year, with 70 farmers murdered, compared to 339 attacks and 64 farmers murdered last year.
On Monday, Mariandra Heunis, who joined the hundreds of protesters recalled the murder of her husband, Johan. He was shot six times: “He was our breadwinner; he was our everything and they destroyed that for us. Our lives came to a halt, a shocking halt.”
The family was attacked in October 2016 on their smallholding outside Pretoria. Her youngest child was born five days after his father’s funeral.
But EFF spokesperson Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi denounced the demonstrations as consisting of privileged individuals who benefited from a racist past.
Black First Land First (BLF) called on blacks to “mourn” thousands of black farmworkers it claims are still “slaves on farms”. BLF’s national deputy spokesperson Brian Tloubatla said the movement stood with farmworkers, “not the racist, violent land thieves”.
Mining workers’ union Cosatu also bashed the “farmers’ racist march”.
