Letter From the UK (About Australia)

Australia Examining Fast-Track Visas for Threatened South African Farmers

Simon Kent
Breitbart London

Australia is ready to consider issuing special visas to mainly white, Afrikaans-speaking South African farmers due to the “horrific circumstances” of land seizures, violence and murder they face.
Peter Dutton, Australia’s home affairs minister, told the Sydney Daily Telegraph on Wednesday his department was examining a range of methods to smooth their path to Australia on humanitarian or other visa programs.

As Breitbart News has reported, South Africans are increasingly worried that the government’s plans to expropriate land from white farmers without compensation could destroy the economy and the country’s fragile democracy.  South Africa’s new president Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to pursue the same course as Zimbabwe’s former leader Robert Mugabe in expropriating farmland from white farmers without compensation.


President Ramaphosa, who replaced Jacob Zuma after years of corruption scandals finally forced the 75-year-old from office, was cheered in the South African parliament as he pledged to “accelerate our land distribution programme … to redress a grave historical injustice [and] make more land available to our people for cultivation.”

Such is the level of violence in South Africa that thousands of mainly white, Afrikaans-speaking farmers have taken to the streets to protest and plead for help.

Last year the October 30th #BlackMonday protests were organised after civil rights group AfriForum released figures claiming the murder rate for South African farmers was 156 per 100,000 — putting it well above the already high national average and making farming arguably the most dangerous occupation in the world outside a warzone.

At the same time, the number of slain farmers, farm workers, and family members — most of them white — had hit 71, surpassing the estimated death toll for 2016.

Now Australia stands ready to offer help.  “If you look at the footage and read the stories, you hear the accounts, it’s a horrific circumstance they face,” Mr. Dutton told the Telegraph.

The home affairs minister noted Australia has refugee, humanitarian and other visa programs which have the “potential to help some of these people”. He said he had asked his department to look at the options “because from what I have seen they do do need help from a civilised country like ours”.

 “The people we’re talking about want to work hard, they want to contribute to a country like Australia,” Mr. Dutton continued. “We want people who want to come here, abide by our laws, integrate into our society, work hard, not lead a life on welfare. And I think these people deserve special attention and we’re certainly applying that special attention now.”

Mr. Dutton suggested options included the in-country persecution visa category, and to bring them to Australia on humanitarian visas via referrals from others in Australia.