DA to report Malema’s chant of ‘Kill the boer, kill the farmer’ to the UN

DA leader John Steenhuisen believes the EFF leader, Julius Malema, was inciting violence by chanting the slogan “Kill the boer, kill the farmer” at the party’s 10th-anniversary rally at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg at the weekend.

The DA intends to lay charges against Malema with the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as Parliament’s ethics committee.

“We are filing charges against both Julius Malema and the ANC government at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The first element of the United Nations case will focus on Malema’s incitement of ethnic violence.

“The second element will focus on charging the ANC national government over its years of failure to take action against its one-time protégé, even as brutal farm murders continue to escalate in the wake of Malema’s demagoguery,” he said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Malema celebrates EFF’s 10th anniversary with lots of promises and a vow to unseat the ANC in 2024

Speaking on Monday, Steenhuisen said that by chanting ‘Kill the boer, kill the farmer’, Malema resurrected the demon of hatred, division and ethnic violence in SA.

“From that stage in Soweto, Malema told thousands of his followers that they must ‘shoot to kill’. He instructed them further to ‘kill the boer, kill the farmer’. Then he mimicked the chilling sound of machine-gun fire to members of his political cult who answered with thunderous approval.

“Julius Malema told us exactly who he is and it is time we believe him. For far too long the government, media, civil society and constitutional institutions have refused to acknowledge Malema for the bloodthirsty tyrant and demagogue that he really is. They have brushed off the threat that he is to our constitutional democracy. These people help to normalise Malema’s hatred and racism,” Steenhuisen said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Julius Malema and his Extraordinary, Fanatical Followers, a decade later

He believes that Malema is in contravention of three United Nations charters: the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic Religious Linguistic Minorities, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“A political leader that incites mass murder is not normal and an MP who calls for the killing of an entire section of society is not normal and cowardly politicians who turn a blind eye to the incitement of civil war are not normal. The DA will not turn away; we will confront Julius Malema’s fascism head-on.

“The DA recently forced the SA government to live up to its international responsibility to comply with warrants issued by the ICC [International Criminal Court]. We will now do the same, to force it to act against Malema. In addition to this, we will also file a complaint with Parliament’s Ethics Committee against Malema in his capacity as an MP. We are further obtaining legal advice about approaching the Public Protector as well as the courts,” Steenhuisen said.

Malema is scheduled to hold a press briefing on Tuesday where is expected to respond to Steenhuisen’s announcement.

Meanwhile, Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald on Monday opened a case against Malema with the police and laid a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission.

“The time has come for action to be taken against the EFF leader, Julius Malema, regarding his inflammatory statements and the FF Plus has today renewed a complaint about this to the police and the Human Rights Commission,” said the Freedom Front Plus.

The uproar comes despite the song “Kill the boer, kill the farmer” being found not to be hate speech, according to an Equality Court ruling. The ruling, made in August 2022 by Judge Edwin Molahlehi, said the song articulates the failure of the current government to address issues of economic empowerment and land division.

Minority rights group AfriForum took the EFF to court after EFF members chanted the slogan outside the Magistrates’ Court in Senekal in October 2020 where those accused of murdering farm manager Brendin Horner were appearing.

Crime Intelligence second-in-command faces backlash