Midlands

In the beautiful hills of the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, in the spring of 1999, a young white farmer was shot dead on the dirt road running from his father's farmhouse to his irrigation fields. The murder was the work of assassins: a single shot behind the ear, with no forensic evidence left at the scene. Jonny Steinberg travelled to the midlands to investigate. Local black workers said the farmer had it coming; the dead man's father said he and his neighbours were being pushed off the land by a political conspiracy.