Were these two talented agricultural researchers targetted for attack -- or just unlucky?

Were these two talented agricultural researchers pre-targetted for attack -- or just plain unlucky?

Brutal mutilation and attack on two talented agricultural-forestry researchers - family and doctors denied they were raped -- and nine have been arrested
vschoema@dieburger.com - Vera Schoeman

East London - Sept 5 2002 -- Nine people have been arrested in connection with Wednesday's brutal attack and robberies leading up to the assaults against two academic agricultural researchers in the Peddie area -- an attack which was carried out with such ferocity that it resulted in one victim losing her unborn child, and another victim's face brutally slashed into shreds.

Importantly -- an initial police statement said the academics had also been raped -- however the medical experts treating them and the family of the victims, are all denying this.

One victim is in very serious condition -- Dr Isla Grundy, a Zimbabwean citizen who is a forestryfaculty lecturer at at the University of Stellenbosch. Her face was slashed into shreds and her life still hangs in the balance. If Dr Grundy survives she would need extensive reconstructive facial surgery.

Third attack within several months on Dr Grundy - what a strange coincidence:

Grundy has dedicated her life to the upliftment of disadvantaged communities and had already been been attacked three times in the past few months. Dr. Grundy was the team leader of a joint rural forestry education project with Stellenbosch and Fort Cox Agricultural College in the Eastern Cape (sponsored by the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development) and frequently travelled in the Peddie area for her research. (her e-mail: imgr@land.sun.ac.za, her colleague Prof Norman Rethman's email: norm@scientia.up.ac.za)

Read Dr Grundy's articles on:

Dr Grundy's contact with Zimbabwean agricultural-forestry government official:
In 2000, an article appeared on the internet about Dr Grundy's work by Zimbabwean government forestry commission official Khosi Ramachela, who had been on a "networking trip" to SA and Lesotho government forestry sites, on:

http://www.cbnrm.uwc.ac.za/resources/khosi%20ramachela.htm

Grundy's mother in Britain, "has been warned to expect the worst," says a friend, Alex Kuhn.

Michelle Cocks, investigator of land ownership claims in Ciskei - second victim:

The second victim, Michelle Cocks, of the Institute of Social and Economic Research
at Rhodes University, who lost her unborn baby as a result of the attack, has now been transferred to a general ward at St Dominic Hospital and is expected to recover physically. (background:

Land tenancy claims of Ciskei farm workers investigated:
Ms Cocks also was familiar with the Peddie area where she and her colleague were attacked -- having researched some of the region's most hotly-contested land tenancy claims, described in detail in her paper: "Land and Agrarian Reform: Transition and Continuity on former white-owned Farmland in an Eastern Cape Locality".

She frequently dealt with families of former Ciskei farm workers organised into a group called "Masakane" who for the past twenty years had lived on farms in the Victoria East magisterial district of the former Ciskei, surrounded by the districts of Fort Beaufort, Stockenstrom, Middledrift and Peddie.

She was also familiar with Peddie through researching the commercialisation of plants in the Eastern Cape: http://www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/herbarium/leaf2b.html

Police captain Michelle Matroos said the run-up to the attack on the researchers apparently had started last Friday -- when a group of seven [people had hijacked a vehicle in Mdantsane, East London. They drove to Port Elizabeth, ran out of fuel outside Peddie, and three were sent to fetch petrol. These three instead decided to catch a taxi back to Mdantsane, leaving their comrades stranded for three days, the police captain said.

It is suspected these remaining four -- one was a female -- then encountered the two women about 18:00 on Monday. Police weren't sure whether the women had given these people a lift - or whether they had been hijacked.

After the women had been brutally assaulted, mutilated and left for dead in the veld, the attackers travelled to East London in Grundy's rented car on Wednesday.

Four of the suspects were apparently positively identified as having carried out the attacks, police said, while the other five were arrested at a Mdantsane house, allegedly with a camera, documents and other personal belongings of the attacked women - but who otherwise were said to not have had any direct involvement in the attacks. They are being remanded in the East London magistrate's court on Friday.

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