Sasha
4th April 2010, 09:45
April 4, 2010
White supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche murdered in pay dispute
Eugene Terreblanche, the leader of the white supremacist AWB or Afrikaner Resistence Movement, was hacked and bludgeoned to death by two of his black farm-hands in a dispute over wages on Saturday, according to South African police.
The body of the controversial activist who rose to prominence in the 1980s was found on his bed with facial and head injuries. Police spokeswoman Adele Myburgh said a machete was found on his body and a knobkerry club was lying next to the bed.
His attackers were a 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy who worked for him on his farm outside Ventersdorp, about 68 miles (110 km) northwest of Johannesburg, she said. The pair, who have been arrested and charged with murder, told police there had been a dispute because they were not paid for work they had done on the farm.
South African President Jacob Zuma appealed for calm following what he described as "this terrible deed." In a statement, he appealed for; "South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fueling racial hatred."
The opposition Democratic Alliance party blamed increasing racial tensions for the killing.
"This happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fueled by irresponsible racist utterances; by two members of the governing African National Council," said Juanita Terblanche, the Democratic Alliance legislator for that constituency.
Ms Terblanche, who is not related to the far-right leader, said her party did not share his political convictions but warned that the attack on him could be seen as an attack on the diverse components of South Africa's democracy.
Mr Terreblanche, with his gruff heavily accented tones became a familiar figure in the dying days of Apartheid fighting for the retention of white-supremacist rule. His 1980s campaign for a separate white homeland made him the champion of of a tiny minority determined to stop the process that was bringing apartheid to an end.
A former policeman, he founded the AWB in 1973, initially as a secret society. In 1979, however, it sprang to prominence after it tarred and feathered a liberal Afrikaans professor who had dared suggest reforms to Afrikaner rituals which the AWB held sacred. Thereafter Terreblanche dogged any Afrikaner politicians he suspected of selling out to the blacks.
He affected the dress and style of a 19th-century voortrekker and won a not inconsiderable number of hardline converts to his views that a black revolution (ie, democracy) had to be avoided at all costs.
In 1982 he was given a suspended sentence for possessing arms and explosives but, wholly unabashed in 1986 launched Brandwag (Sentry), a commando organisation to protect whites and white property. Thereafter he had continual skirmishes with the police but his following grew as the Afrikaner leadership prepared to negotiate with the ANC, raising fears on the far right.
Once De Klerk opened negotiations in 1990, Terreblanche came into his own, claiming that his movement alone stood between South Africa and communist revolution. In 1993 an armoured vehicle driven by the AWB smashed through a large police cordon and into the World Trade Centre in Johannesburg, where negotiations where taking place.
In 1994 the AWB launched an ill-fated military intervention into the Bophuthatswana homeland which ended with three AWB men being butchered in the street in full view of TV cameras. This clear military incapacity, together with the arrival of democracy, robbed Terreblanche of most of his following and significance. Thereafter he declared that “the war is over” and merely defended individual white right-wingers.
In 1992 the documentary-maker Nick Broomfield made a film about Mr Terreblanche. As a result of it, the South-African born journalist Jani Allan sued Channel 4 for libel, claiming the film on her presented her as a “woman of easy virtue”.
It was alleged that Broomfield had suggested Allan had an affair with Terreblanche. A witness described seeing his heaving, white buttocks through a keyhole and slumped in just a pair of underpants with holes in. She went on to lose the case.
Mr Terreblanche admitted “moral responsibility” for car bombs that killed 17 people and put South Africa’s first democratic elections under threat in 1994.
In 1997 he was sentenced to six years in jail after he had assaulted one worker and attempted to kill another. He became a born-again Christian and claimed to have moderated his views, but by 2008 he had refounded the AWB and was again agitating for a separate white homeland.
Many Afrikaners saw him as a ridiculous figure but his outrageous style and outspokenness won him a sneaking regard from many. His death is a big political event in South Africa and the far right will now claim that Mr Terreblanche has joined the ranks of Afrikaner martyrs who died for die volk.
Mr Terreblanche was released from prison in 2004 after serving three years of a five-year term for attempted murder.
Speaking in 2005 he said: “I have always been made out as a racist, someone who hates black people. I don’t hate them. I grew up with them. I just know there are many differences between whites and blacks and I will always believe it.”
source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7087179.ece
White supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche murdered in pay dispute
Eugene Terreblanche, the leader of the white supremacist AWB or Afrikaner Resistence Movement, was hacked and bludgeoned to death by two of his black farm-hands in a dispute over wages on Saturday, according to South African police.
The body of the controversial activist who rose to prominence in the 1980s was found on his bed with facial and head injuries. Police spokeswoman Adele Myburgh said a machete was found on his body and a knobkerry club was lying next to the bed.
His attackers were a 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy who worked for him on his farm outside Ventersdorp, about 68 miles (110 km) northwest of Johannesburg, she said. The pair, who have been arrested and charged with murder, told police there had been a dispute because they were not paid for work they had done on the farm.
South African President Jacob Zuma appealed for calm following what he described as "this terrible deed." In a statement, he appealed for; "South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fueling racial hatred."
The opposition Democratic Alliance party blamed increasing racial tensions for the killing.
"This happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fueled by irresponsible racist utterances; by two members of the governing African National Council," said Juanita Terblanche, the Democratic Alliance legislator for that constituency.
Ms Terblanche, who is not related to the far-right leader, said her party did not share his political convictions but warned that the attack on him could be seen as an attack on the diverse components of South Africa's democracy.
Mr Terreblanche, with his gruff heavily accented tones became a familiar figure in the dying days of Apartheid fighting for the retention of white-supremacist rule. His 1980s campaign for a separate white homeland made him the champion of of a tiny minority determined to stop the process that was bringing apartheid to an end.
A former policeman, he founded the AWB in 1973, initially as a secret society. In 1979, however, it sprang to prominence after it tarred and feathered a liberal Afrikaans professor who had dared suggest reforms to Afrikaner rituals which the AWB held sacred. Thereafter Terreblanche dogged any Afrikaner politicians he suspected of selling out to the blacks.
He affected the dress and style of a 19th-century voortrekker and won a not inconsiderable number of hardline converts to his views that a black revolution (ie, democracy) had to be avoided at all costs.
In 1982 he was given a suspended sentence for possessing arms and explosives but, wholly unabashed in 1986 launched Brandwag (Sentry), a commando organisation to protect whites and white property. Thereafter he had continual skirmishes with the police but his following grew as the Afrikaner leadership prepared to negotiate with the ANC, raising fears on the far right.
Once De Klerk opened negotiations in 1990, Terreblanche came into his own, claiming that his movement alone stood between South Africa and communist revolution. In 1993 an armoured vehicle driven by the AWB smashed through a large police cordon and into the World Trade Centre in Johannesburg, where negotiations where taking place.
In 1994 the AWB launched an ill-fated military intervention into the Bophuthatswana homeland which ended with three AWB men being butchered in the street in full view of TV cameras. This clear military incapacity, together with the arrival of democracy, robbed Terreblanche of most of his following and significance. Thereafter he declared that “the war is over” and merely defended individual white right-wingers.
In 1992 the documentary-maker Nick Broomfield made a film about Mr Terreblanche. As a result of it, the South-African born journalist Jani Allan sued Channel 4 for libel, claiming the film on her presented her as a “woman of easy virtue”.
It was alleged that Broomfield had suggested Allan had an affair with Terreblanche. A witness described seeing his heaving, white buttocks through a keyhole and slumped in just a pair of underpants with holes in. She went on to lose the case.
Mr Terreblanche admitted “moral responsibility” for car bombs that killed 17 people and put South Africa’s first democratic elections under threat in 1994.
In 1997 he was sentenced to six years in jail after he had assaulted one worker and attempted to kill another. He became a born-again Christian and claimed to have moderated his views, but by 2008 he had refounded the AWB and was again agitating for a separate white homeland.
Many Afrikaners saw him as a ridiculous figure but his outrageous style and outspokenness won him a sneaking regard from many. His death is a big political event in South Africa and the far right will now claim that Mr Terreblanche has joined the ranks of Afrikaner martyrs who died for die volk.
Mr Terreblanche was released from prison in 2004 after serving three years of a five-year term for attempted murder.
Speaking in 2005 he said: “I have always been made out as a racist, someone who hates black people. I don’t hate them. I grew up with them. I just know there are many differences between whites and blacks and I will always believe it.”
source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7087179.ece