Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
VENTERSDORP, South Africa – Racial tensions mounted on Tuesday in front of the Ventersdorp courthouse where two men accused of killing a white supremacist were scheduled to appear.
Eugene Terreblanche was beaten to death on Saturday night in bed. A 15-year-old and his 28-year-old coworker are suspected of killing Terreblanche because he hadn’t paid them in months.
Eugene Terreblanche Killed (Source:CNN)
The proceedings will not be made public and the police have not released either suspect’s name because the younger of the two is a minor.
Nearly 2,000 people faced off outside the courthouse located nearly 100 miles west of Pretoria. The groups, split along racial lines, were there in support, the white group supporting Terreblanche’s family and the black group supporting the suspects’ families.
The situation escalated into a confrontation when a middle-aged white woman sprayed a drink on the group of black people who were singing the Zulu choruses of the country’s national anthem. Just before the confrontation, a group of white militants sang “a rendition of the apartheid-era anthem” in Afrikaans and “waved old flags signifying white rule.”
Police rushed in and used coils of razor wire to separate the groups.
After the groups were pacified, Pieter Steyn, AWB provincial leader, apologized for the woman’s actions, explaining that AWB condemns violence and pulling away from threats that the militants would “avenge Terreblanche’s death.”
According to Steyn, threats were made “in the heat to the moment. We have spoken to every one of them and told them to be calm.”
The AWB blames the African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, saying that his “public performances of an anti-apartheid song that includes lines about killing white farmers” was the cause of Terreblanche’s death. Malema maintains that the song is “part of its heritage.”
Regional Director of the South African National Civic Organization Bomber Matinyane called Malema’s song the equivalent of the display of old flags, and said both contributed to escalated racial tensions.
Terreblanche was a white supremacist and the founding militant leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement (AWB), which fought against abolition of apartheid.
He was once convicted of beating Paul Motshabi, a former security guard, so badly that he was left brain damaged, paralyzed, and unable to speak for months. He was sentenced to six years in jail, but was released after serving three.
Brenda Abrams, a black businesswoman outside the courthouse Tuesday, noted the “big fuss” over Terreblanche’s death.
“But nobody says anything when black farmworkers are killed,” she said.
For more information, please see:
AFP – White Supremacists Rally at S.Africa Court – 06 April 2010
AP – Tensions Rise in SAfrican White Supremacist Case – 06 April 2010
CNN – S. Africa Murder Suspects to Face Court – 06 April 2010
Guardian – Terre’Blanche Murder Suspects to Face Charges as Tensions Rise Outside Court – 06 April 2010
