Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terre’Blanche denied having any plans to go into politics on his release from prison on Friday.
”I am going to stand, to work, to fight, for the existence and safety of my mother tongue,” he told reporters in Potchefstroom.
The 60-year-old rightwinger was granted parole after serving three years of an effective five-year sentence for the 1996 attempted murder of security guard Paul Motshabi.
Terre’Blanche said that as a Christian he could not take his own life, but when he heard he would have to serve a prison sentence he asked God to kill him rather than send him to jail.
He was, however, well looked after during his three years and eight months in Rooigrond Prison just outside Mafikeng in the North West, he said.
Speaking in Afrikaans, Terre’Blanche said he was found guilty on the testimony of just one man and had asked God how this was possible.
He said he then realised Jesus Christ did not deserve to be crucified either. ”Rooigrond was my Golgotha,” he said, referring to the place where Jesus was executed.
Terre’Blanche said his term in prison had strengthened his Christianity but had not changed his belief. ”I believe I am changed to be deeper in the knowledge that I am only a man and my creator… from now on will give the right commands to live my life as an honourable citizen who also knows his duty to his people,” he said.
”I was never wrong to do my duty to my people.”
Terre’Blanche said he would attempt to get back the family farm which he lost when he ran into financial difficulties trying to pay legal fees.
Referring to 1994 when South Africa made a peaceful transition to democracy, Terre’Blanche said he was not going to start a war — which was over for the Boers 10 years ago — but to call all to his God.
He said he was prohibited by his parole conditions from speaking about his sentence, but promised to release a book about it in 18 months.
During his parole Terre’Blanche is limited to the magisterial districts of Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp.
Terre’Blanche was met by his wife Martie and daughter Bea as he left the Potchefstroom Community Corrections office before mounting his horse Atilla and riding down a street in Potchefstroom.
He told supporters: ”I feel like a king on a horse. (I feel) better than ever.”
AWB members were overwhelmed and outnumbered by black onlookers who toyi-toyied beside Terre’Blanche and two other men on horses as they paraded down the street.
Singing African National Congress freedom songs, and shouting ”Viva ANC” and ”Viva 10 years of democracy”, they threatened to steal the right-wingers’ limelight.
Many of the black onlookers, however, were conciliatory. ”I forgive him for what he has done, ” said Booi Maritsi (35) who took a day’s leave from his job in the Free State to see Terre’Blanche.
Terre’Blanche said his fellow prisoners had not bothered him during his prison term. They realised he just wanted to be a ”Boer” and did not want to put others down. He said he respected a ”Tswana who says he is a Tswana”, just as he respected Zulus, British and ”sometimes even Americans”, who were true to their nationalities.
This was contrary to Basson’s earlier comment that Terre’Blanche was unfairly treated in prison.
The Azanian People’s Organisation said Terre’Blanche should first show a change of heart before South Africans can give him a hero’s welcome.
”There is nothing morally redeeming or politically pleasant about the release of a person whose racial attitude is dangerous and hard to understand,” Azapo secretary general Dan Habedi said in a statement.
Habedi said the right-winger had not committed himself to reconciliation and believed in ”display dominance over others” as he thought he was a member of ”the chosen race”.
”We know black people to be forgiving and magnanimous, but we also feel it is incorrect to bend over backwards and welcome a person whose commitment to our democracy is not clear,” said Habedi. – Sapa