The office of Western Cape premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk has confirmed that a written threat against him by right-wing militants has been referred to the police.
His representative Riaan Aucamp said on Sunday the threat was contained in documents received by the premier’s office last week.
Weekend newspapers linked the documents to the recent indictment of ten rightwingers on charges of high treason, and the seizure of an eight-ton truckful of quasi-military arms and equipment found abandoned in Lichtenburg over the weekend.
”I can confirm such a written threat was received against Mr Van Schalkwyk,” Aucamp said.
”It seems that part of the motivation was the co-operation agreement between the New National Party and the African National Congress,” he said.
Van Schalkwyk, who is also leader of the NNP, took his party into a pact with the ANC at the end of last year, and they govern the Western Cape together.
Aucamp said some of the documents were signed by the ”interim president” of the ”South African Boer Republic”, Theuns Kruger.
He declined to say whether van Schalkwyk’s security had been increased since receipt of the threat.
”We never comment on the security around the premier,” he said.
”All threats are seen in a very serious light and are taken up very seriously.”
The Sunday Times reported that among the documents sent to the premier were ”proclamations” issued in July this year by the ”war cabinet” of the ”interim government of the South African Boer Republic”.
It said they stated that the ANC government was a ”murderous terrorist movement” that was destroying the Boer nation through, among other things, ethnic cleansing.
Senior Superintendent Martin Aylward, representative for the police’s crime intelligence unit, told Sapa on Sunday that the abandoned Lichtenburg lorry was reported to crime intelligence as one of a convoy travelling from Nelspruit to Thabazimbi.
There was no immediate explanation of why it was abandoned at an Engen filling station in Lichtenburg’s industrial area.
The crime intelligence unit found one AK-47 assault rifle and a number of other firearms in the truck, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition of various calibres.
Aylward said much of the ammunition was packaged in the original brown plastic used by the military or police, but not commercially available.
A quantity of home-made petrol bombs were also found in the truck as well as other items of a quasi-military nature. Detectives were joined by bomb disposal experts as fingerprint and forensic investigation continued throughout Saturday night. – Sapa