Last week in the town of Pomfret in the North West Province a scene unfolded, familiar to all those terrified, unarmed citizens who faced down Caspirs, tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets in the townships during the apartheid era. The North West Province Government has moved from its scorched earth strategy of cutting off community services to a new ‘crowbar’ strategy. By intimidating a few residents - mostly widows - into signing agreements to move out, they have managed to leverage in police and demolition teams, hell-bent on further terrorizing the community, destroying public property and making Pomfret unlivable, unhindered by legal processes of any description. Let’s dispel the myth once and for all.

Pomfret is a civilian community, in which about 5% of the population consists of SADF veterans, mostly over the age of 60. This leaves only one explanation for the current situation: a Portuguese-speaking, culturally distinct community is not welcome in the North West Province and the Government is addressing the problem using what can only be called ethnic cleansing. Welcome to the Rainbow Nation.

The intimidation and victimisation of the people of Pomfret escalated during the past week. This happened in spite of agreements reached between lawyers of the community and the Premiers office on Monday morning to the effect that people of Pomfret will be allowed a period of 48 hours to decide if they wanted to leave Pomfret or elected to stay on in Pomfret. People who wanted to leave would on Wednesday morning assemble at the community hall and those who wanted to stay would remain in their houses. In addition an agreement was reached that henceforth the North West Provincial Government will subject itself to the letter of the Prevention of Illegal Evictions Act.

Reneging on the agreement demolition teams under control of the Dept of Public Works continued with their destruction of habitable houses vacated by people who elected to move to Mafikeng. In addition two houses still occupied by people who intended to stay on in Pomfret were also ransacked with all the furniture and curtains stolen.

In addition the Dept of Public Works is busy vandalising the water infrastructure by breaking pipes and removing taps. If and when the water supply to Pomfret is repaired the vandalised water reticulation system will ensure that the people of Pomfret remain without water.

The intensified intimidation and victimisation of the people comes in the week when the ANC is celebrating the “victory” at Cuito Cuanavale - a further indication of the vindictive and political nature of the ANC goverment’s campaign against the Portuguese speaking SA citizens of Pomfret.

SAPS members “confiscated” (Stole?) all military medals in the possession of ex-combatants who chose to be relocated. Military service certificates and any clothing or personal items that had any links with former 32Bn were also “confiscated”. No authorisation for this action could be presented neither were any receipts given to the people from whom this was taken. It is clear that the reality of the 1987 -1988 Cuban-Fapla humiliation in South East Angola in which 32Bn participated remains a serious and unforgivenable issue even 20 years after the event.

It is clear that the objective that the objective to break up the Portuguese speaking community and to disperse them to locations far apart remains intact. This can be regarded as ethnic cleansing reminiscent of the Apartheid era.

The Molopo Local Municipality also joined the latest ANC driven “free for all” against the Pomfret citizens by closing the municipal office and by removing all the chairs, tables and all other equipment from the Pomfret community hall. Church services and community meetings will now have to be held with people sitting on the floor.

The local clinic has also been closed and health services for the 5000 SA citizens have become non-existent. The death of an epileptic girl can be linked to the closure of the clinic and the subsequent limited medicine supply.

In what must be regarded as one of the major achievements for the ANC Local Municipality - if judged by the deep and saddening impact on the community - the chairs (infant size), children’s toys, stove and refrigerator were removed from the local crèche and taken to Tosca on a municipal bakkie, leaving the infants without any equipment or furniture in a barren building without any means to have food prepared.

The events of the past weeks disrupted activities at the Pomfret school and teaching was suspended.

The DA regards the intimidation and victimisation of the people of Pomfret as not only illegal but also as gross human rights violations.

The DA welcomes the presence of members of the Human Rights Commission from time to time at Pomfret and will also accompanying concerned foreigners to Pomfret to witness the statutory abuse of SA citizens by the ANC Government.

The DA also supports pending legal action after these gross human rights violations.

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