In the Country, No One Can Hear You Scream (Updated)

Repeating a comment from a reader on an earlier post, "in the country, no one can hear you scream." As many of you already know, an unprecedented wave of violence has swept over South Africa where bandits have targeted and killed numerous white farmers. It probably should be termed genocide. While generally ignored by the media at large, the Daily Mail had this report today:

A British engineer was murdered and his wife brutally beaten at their remote South African farm by robbers who took just £210 cash and a mobile phone.

Chris Preece, 54, who made his home there after ‘falling in love with the country’ was hacked to death in his kitchen by a gang with machetes.

His wife Felicity, 56, was stabbed and hit with a pole, fracturing her skull.
She survived a 12-hour wait for help by treating her own wounds.

The murder, on Saturday evening, is the latest in a spate of violent robberies in South Africa targeting relatively wealthy white farmers.

Mr Preece, originally from Southgate, north London, was attacked at about 7pm as he went to take his seven dogs for a walk at his farm near Ficksburg, on the Lesotho border.

The gang killed him, then attacked his wife.

‘Because the gang had cut the telephone wires and there is no mobile phone reception, she couldn’t get help,’ said friend and neighbour Gavin Hoole.

‘It was only the next morning, at around 7am, that anyone realised something was wrong.’

... Jeanne Preece, who is married to their son, said the couple, who have two daughters, were unaware there had been a murder and four robberies on local farms in the past month.

... Mr Preece's death is the latest in an alarming trend of brutal murders on remote farmsteads in post apartheid South Africa.

Since the country's first fully democratic elections in 1994, more than 3,000 white, mainly Afrikaans, farmers have been killed in their homes.

The so-called 'farm attacks' are part of the wave of criminality that has engulfed the country in recent years, something criminologist blame of a number of factors, including inept policing and widening social inequality.

But in the case of 'farm attacks' - which occur far from the crime-ravaged townships - academics also blame a breakdown in the traditional social contract between employer and employee.

Police research shows that the murders are normally carried out by drug-addicted, unemployed black men. Often they have some connection with the targeted farmstead.
Local police said the attack at Mr Preece's farm - called Fleur de Lys - is the fifth such attack, and the second murder, in the district over the past month.

While there are probably numerous security precautions that the Preeces could have taken but didn't, the fact is that living a normal life, you can't have your guard up all of the time. Particularly, if as suggested in the article, the attackers were familiar with the farm and, probably, the Preeces' schedule. I just want to note a few facts. First, isolation didn't save him. It could have cost his wife her life. It was 12 hours before anyone responded. Second, having dogs didn't save him. We don't know from the story if the dogs alerted the Preeces, but it was too late; or if the dogs failed to sense the intruders, or something else. It is possible that if the bandits were familiar with the farm, the dogs didn't recognize them as intruders.

Update: Some additional information on the attack from the Guardian:

Chris Preece, 54, stepped outside to investigate a power cut when he was attacked by three men with machetes. "Preece fled to the house, but the attackers chased after him and continued the assault," said police spokesman Phumelelo Dhlamini.

...  Preece's guard dogs are believed to have been poisoned after he took them out on Saturday night, according to the Volksblad newspaper. Preece became concerned when they did not return and was attacked soon after. His 56-year-old wife, Felicity, was stabbed several times and suffered a fractured skull. She is said to be in a stable condition in hospital.