Informant38

war of human against beast

In the little village of Ncweng, people had gathered their donkeys together for counting. Soldiers arrived and shot the lot. They then fanned out across the veld, searching river valleys and grazing areas, pumping bullets into every donkey they found. People who resisted were bullied. A few, realizing the danger, hid donkeys in their houses. The soldiers then moved to the next village, then the next.
"They didn't take aim," one person told a history researcher, Nancy Jacobs. "They shot animals anywhere, as often as it took to kill them. They were not put to death, they were savaged. Others were shot in the eye, or different parts of the body and the feet..."
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Some speculated the slaughter was a move by the upper class of cattle-keepers to reduce pressure on grazing. The official decree simply announced that "surplus" donkeys were to be exterminated, but trigger-happy soldiers soon turned the cull into mass slaughter.
The estimate of 20,000 dead donkeys is probably conservative.

Don Pinnock/ENN Mar.19.04