An opposition lawmaker said today the government should investigate a magistrate's decision to impose only a small fine on a white farmer convicted of beating a black worker who died the next day. The farmer, Wilhelm Rabe, was fined the equivalent of $40 on Feb. 12 for assaulting Ekati Xaba last year on a farm near the eastern border with Swaziland. Magistrate J.D. Jacquire accepted evidence that Rabe had beaten Xaba with an electric cord, but rejected testimony that the worker also was thrown to the ground and kicked. Jacquire said there was no proof that the beating caused the brain haemmorrhage and ruptured spleen that were blamed for Xaba's death the day after the beating. Lester Fuchs, a Parliament member for the anti-apartheid Democratic Party, said the sentence was excessively lenient and could cause negative publicity for South Africa at a time when the government is promoting racial reconciliation. He asked that Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee account for the magistrate's ruling. According to The Sowetan, the country's largest black-oriented daily newspaper, two people who witnessed the beating had given statements to police but were never called to testify in court. The Sowetan said Xaba's widow and six children were forced to leave the farm after his death and now live in a one-room cardboard shack. There have been at least two other similar cases in the past three years, in which white farmers avoided prison despite being convicted of fatal assaults of black employees. Several blacks convicted of murdering white farmers are on Death Row, facing hanging if the government lifts a recently declared moratorium on executions.
