PETITION TO THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UN, H.E. MR. ANTONIO GUTERRES TO END FARM MURDERS IN SOUTH AFRICA

15th December 2020

His Excellency, Mr Antonio Guterres, my name is Louis Michael Green and I am a pastor and a concerned citizen from Kraaifontein, Cape Town, South Africa.

I am appealing to you to use your influence in the UN and throughout the world to help us in South Africa to end the scourge of farm killings in our country.

We must end farm murders in South Africa before it is too late.

Farmers throughout South Africa produce our fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat and without them, our nation will starve.

At first, when I started this petition, I had one signature, my own. I was aiming for 100,000 signatures for this petition when I started but as a result of the fantastic response, i.e. 115,000 signatures in 6 days, I have decided to increase the target to 500,000 supporters.

I now have over 388,000 supporters.

The huge response to my petition to STOP FARM MURDERS is an indication of the urgency of the matter and the public outcry in South Africa.

At first, I intended to take the petition to the former State President, Mr. Jacob Zuma, and our Minister of Police, but after much prayer and thinking, and after receiving hundreds of messages from farmers, family members who lost loved ones, and many petitioners, I have decided to take our petition directly to you at THE UNITED NATIONS IN NEW YORK, the USA, and ask for an audience with you, the SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS, H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterrez.

Many of my petitioners believe it would be a waste of our time to take the petition to the State President, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, because he has done nothing about the farm murders since his election and he continues to do nothing.

It would be a similar waste of time to take the petition to the Minister of Police because he has been critical of the mass action on Black Monday, 30th of October, 2017, and he has not released the specific statistics of farm attacks and murders.

We have great confidence in you as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, that you will be able to place our petition on the international agenda.

If it is possible to have an independent commission of inquiry from the Commissioner of Human Rights violations into the FARM MURDERS in South Africa, we would also greatly appreciate this.

We would, in the meantime, also petition our own South African government to demand an independent commission of inquiry into farm murders to investigate the root causes of such murders and a response from the present government (from the Ministry of Police) on what will be done to stop these murders with immediate effect.

We are now planning an International march to our Parliament in Cape Town, during  2021 to hand over a petition of 500,000 signatures to our new State President, the Honourable Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa..

I was encouraged when I saw what a young South African, Talitha Basson was doing when she mobilized thousands of farmers almost on her own using Facebook to mobilize them to united action in a march to Cape Town on the 30th of October, 2017.

We are mindful that all murders everywhere in South Africa are reprehensible and should be stopped. Every murder, irrespective of where it happens, is regrettable.

However, the murder of farmers in our country does not only impact the loss of life of one person only but also has a snowball effect of robbing our nation of its food security. Without the farmers, our nation would starve to death - a repeat of the Zimbabwean tragedy.

The reason why I felt we should appeal to international organs, like the UN, is that our government would give this matter its most urgent attention when our petition reaches your office and if it could then be arranged for our South African delegation coming to see you in New York would have an opportunity to discuss our report with the dossier containing our claims of human rights abuses with the UNHCR.

I and all my petitioners trust God for a positive outcome to all our endeavors.

Be Blessed

Kind Regards

Senior Suffragan Bishop Louis Michael Green

A concerned South African Citizen

Kraaifontein, Cape Town

South Africa.

Affiliated to The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, South Africa