The physical safety of South Africa's predominantly white commercial farmers is under constant threat because of recurring and brutal attacks by armed men.
In the past 12 days no less than six farmers and/or members of their families have been slain by assailants. Five farmers have been killed in neighbouring Zimbabwe since February, when the campaign of invasion of white-owned farms by "war veterans" began.
During the same time several members of the farming community have been injured by their attackers, including an elderly couple, Mr Stephanus Pretorius (71), and his wife, Johanna (61).
Mr Constand Viljoen, leader of the Freedom Front and former chief of the SA Defence Force, believes the attackers seek "the systematic extermination of our farming community". Himself a farmer in one of the worst affected areas, Mr Viljoen says the onslaught "is strongly reminiscent of revolutionary terrorism".
In the Free State, the province where three of the six most recently murdered farmers lived, Mr Jan Bothma, of the provincial agricultural union, blames "militants" of an unidentified organisation for the latest spate of assaults.
He says the organisation has launched a concerted campaign against farmers to signal its dissatisfaction with the slow progress of the African National Congress-led government's programme of restitution for blacks who lost their land during the colonial and apartheid phases of SA history.
Several investigations into farm attacks have been ordered by the ANC government since it came to power in 1994. Carried out by the military, the police and the intelligence service, a common theme runs through the inquiries: the insistence that the primary motive is criminal, not political, with robbery as the most common objective.
Many farmers, however, are unconvinced. They believe that even where the assailants are criminals, political rhetoric which portrays farmers as alien usurpers plays a role in motivating them.
Farmers who disbelieve the official view that their attackers are ordinary criminals cite a number of speeches made by black politicians to justify their stance. A speech by Mr Phatekila Holomisa of the ANC is quoted, in which he reportedly stated "racist wars of dispossession, fraud and subterfuge are the means by which whites come to occupy 87 per cent of our country".
The killing of farmers has become commonplace in South Africa. Official figures show that an average of 12 were killed every month in the period 1998-1999. Similar figures are not available for 2000 because the National Police Commissioner, Mr Jackie Selebi, has imposed a moratorium on their release.
But the lack of accurate can even have the effect of aggravating anxiety, as unsubstantiated reports grow with every telling in the relatively small farming community.
In its statement on the latest spate of killings, Agric SA, as the SA Agricultural Union has since renamed itself, warns that ongoing attacks on farmers will prevent them from making their important contribution to the economy. Organised agriculture accounts for 5 per cent of South Africa's gross domestic product, employs 10 per cent of its workforce, and accounts for nearly a third of its non-gold export earnings.
Enraged by the latest killings, the Transvaal Agricultural Union - a former provincial affiliate of Agric SA, accuses unnamed politicians, "even cabinet ministers, of creating a psychological and political climate which encourages the attacks". The statement does not elucidate.
In another province, KwaZulu-Natal, the provincial union declares: "If government is going to be ambivalent about the control of crime, it must understand that the country will eventually be ruled by criminals, not the political party elected to power".
South Africa has about 130,000 commercial farmers compared with Zimbabwe's 4,500, who, unlike their SA counterparts, face expropriation without compensation by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government.
Former Mau Mau freedom fighters from the 1950s say they want Kenya to pursue their claim for compensation from Britain. The Mau Mau War Veterans Association of Kenya wants Britain to pay for human rights abuses it says were carried out during the struggle for independence.