COSATU NW Press Statement 17-07-07

 

COSATU NW Province Press Statement in response to the court decision and the farmer's offer to sell two lions to compensate for the life of nine-year-old Tshepo Gaorupi

The Congress of South African Trade Unions in the North West condemns the latest court decision and the offer by the so-called farmer who thinks that he can replace the life of Tshepo Gaorupi by selling two lions to compensate the parents.

That is a clear picture of a capitalist, bourgeois-nationalist and racist approach - that the life of a black person can be replaced by the proceeds of the sale of two lions.

It is our view that the court ruling should be investigated properly, to check whether the person who made the ruling has a family or children. Our state and judicial system should be investigated. How can our government be so quiet while our poor children, poor farm workers and poor families are under attack by lions whose owners think their lives can be replaced by capital? The farmer should be ashamed of himself.

COSATU calls on Mafikeng High Court, the Department of Agriculture and the farmer to think twice about other families and the rest of the society who have been affected by the death of a nine-year boy mauled by ten lions. The farmer must stop victimising the families and the workers by threatening to dismiss them.

Cosatu calls for:

The national government to investigate the case and call the police to do their work and stop assisting the perpetrators to manipulate the system to suit their stomach and their pocket.
The Provincial Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecutions to defend the rights of the human being. The lions in North West have a history of killing poor farm workers with no prosecution to the owners, or if there is prosecution the outcome is in favour of the employer or farm owner who has money

We call the Department of Labour in North West to act immediately on the safety of the workers. COSATU will not be victimised, threatened or blackmailed by anybody, whether is the head of the police, head of a government department or any petty bourgeois farmer who want to defend his/ her name while poor people are losing their lives.

Our demand remains that the license should not be renewed and that those lions must be put to death and others be confiscated.

For more information contact Cosatu Provincial Secretary on 082 304 4055