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The mayor of the Mkhondo Municipality in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, apologised to the public in a letter to the local newspaper, Excelsior,for his statements on the investigative television programme, Special Assignment. The mayor also called on all parties to engage each other peacefully in all matters.

This comes after the civil rights organisation AfriForum requested the mayor, in writing and verbally at a subsequent meeting, to retract and publicly apologise for statements in which he called on farmworkers to take an eye for an eye if they feel aggrieved by farmers.
‘The statements were unacceptable and called on farmworkers to take the law into their own hands. Both farmers and farmworkers must trust the institutions mandated with enforcing the law. We welcome the apology itself, but are not happy with the cheap shot taken by the mayor in his apology when he states that farmers must stop treating their workers like animals. This insinuates that this is the norm, rather than an unacceptable exception which is condemned by most farmers in our community,’ Tommy Ferreira, chairperson of AfriForum Piet Retief said.

In light of the recent settlement between the ANC and AfriForum about the song, ‘Shoot the Boer’, AfriForum feels that strides are being made concerning mutual respect between all communities in South Africa.