The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) wants a piece of land for its people to govern and call its own, a spokesperson said in Ventersdorp on Tuesday.
“All we want is a piece of land in South Africa where we can settle ourselves and call it our own and govern ourselves with our religion … and our own laws,” said organisation leader Pieter Steyn.
“We want a volkstaat [people’s state], according to our own way and we don’t want any Nigerians, drug lords, rapists, murderers or anyone else there … that’s all we want,” he said.
Steyn was speaking outside the Ventersdorp Magistrate’s Court where the alleged killers of AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche would appear.
On Tuesday morning there was a tense stand-off between black and white South Africans outside the court. Steyn said he had told his supporters to keep calm.
He said the stand-off was caused by a woman who was not an AWB member.
“Emotions are high right now, people are angry and cross but it is normal, we have requested our members to keep cool and calm and refrain from making racial remarks.”
He said AWB members were fearful and that the black group were “playing politics” and were there to “agitate” them.
Police erected a razor wire fence between the two groups after the altercation. The situation had calmed by 10.30am.
Terre’Blanche was found bludgeoned and hacked to death on Saturday at his farm in Ventersdorp.
Land ‘in northern Natal and the Eastern Transvaal’
In September 2009, Terre’Blanche spoke at a right-wing gathering at Vegkop, the monument near Heilbron, which commemorates the battle in 1836 at which 30 Voortrekkers under Hendrik Potgieter defeated the Matabele. He asked for land “in northern Natal and the Eastern Transvaal” to be returned to the boerevolk and complained that Muslims had been allowed to build mosques on the land the Voortrekkers had traded in the 19th century.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian in October 2009, Terre’Blanche said his movement would call on its “immense brains trust” to pursue their goal of a republic.
“We haven’t decided on the lawyers that will take up our cause. We might even get Johann Kriegler,” he says, grinning.
Terre’Blanche also said he hoped to organise a referendum for those who want their own republic in South Africa. He said those registering to vote would have to be white and have an affiliation with the Afrikaner nation — and even those of British descent would be welcome.
He also said English would be an accepted language in the new republic.
“The days of apartheid are over. What must happen now is for every nation to govern itself within its own territory,” he said in the interview.
Terre’Blanche said his “volk” could not bend a knee to a state where more people are killed in peacetime than in all the wars his people had fought. “But we will never run away,” he says. “This is the place [staanplek] of the boerevolk. God brought us here from the different countries with a certain goal. God would not have brought us here if he did not have a plan. And his plan can never be the murder and rape of innocent women and children.”