funeral of Eugene Terreblanche
Ventersdorp. Several thousand supporters of the murdered right-wing leader Eugene Terreblanche Buren in Ventersdorp in South Africa have taken peaceful farewell at the funeral of Eugene Terreblance. A large deployment of police and strict conditions should prevent the feared racial conflicts.
Most followers of the leader of the “Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging” (AWB) followed the service in the crowded “Afrikaans Protestant Church” outside of the church building on monitors and speakers.
At the funeral was also attended by South African police chief Bheki Cele, and Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat Pettersson. The coffin of the murdered man was covered with the white-red flag of the AWB, the Triskele character similar to the swastika of the Nazis. The mourners, many in paramilitary clothes, sang the anthem of the repeatedly 16 years ago, detached, racist apartheid system.
AWB General Andre Visagie called for increased protection of the white farmers in South Africa. In the past 14 years had been killed over 3,000 white farmers, he said. South African authorities put the number of murdered white farmers lower. “We’re tired, we want to govern ourselves, we have our own culture, our own language,” said the spokesman for the AWB, which should have, he says more than 100 000 members. “We want peaceful negotiations with the government,” said Visagie. Only when this failed, “violence is the very last option” is.
Cele urged on the edge of the memorial service, the South Africans to overcome racial prejudice. It should not go in the fight against crime about victims or criminals to identify with skin colors. “We are all South Africans,” said the black police chief. In the past year had been killed in South Africa over 18 000 people, said police do not distinguish between black and white, he said. The murder rate in South Africa is more than 30 times higher than in Germany.
South African authorities had banned the face of tensions since the murder of Terreblanche flags, public speeches and rallies at the funerals. However, surprisingly, the South African Trade Unions had been invited to an “emergency rally” of farm workers in Tsing near the burial site. Unionists justified this with an attempt to keep blacks away from the funeral ceremonies, and thus to prevent collisions. Incidents on Friday were not known, only a black cameraman for the news channel e-tv was pushed by an AWB supporter and insulted.
Terreblanche was buried after the service on his farm near Ventersdorp in the substantial exclusion of the public.
On Tuesday, the police had to intervene in the court building in the Ventersdorp after scuffles between right-wing white men and black demonstrators. The court held its first hearing of the alleged murderer Terreblanche. A 15 – year-old and a 28-year-old accused of killing last Saturday, the 69-year-olds brutally on his farm near Ventersdorp after a wage dispute with a machete and a baton.
Both the ruling party and officials of the ANC splinter group of AWB, the participants of the funeral have called for calm and moderation. After the murder Afrikaner right-wing extremists had called for revenge.