David Smith (Africa correspondent)guardian.co.ukEugene Terre'Blanche, who fought against the end of apartheid, revives notorious AWB group in push for separate republic
A notorious white supremacist from South Africa's apartheid era has revealed plans to rally far right groups and apply to the United Nations for a breakaway Afrikaner republic.
... revived his Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) after several years of inactivity and it would meet with like-minded groups on 10 October to discuss joining forces and pushing for secession from South Africa.
"The circumstances in the country demanded it," he told South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper. "The white man in South Africa is realising that his salvation lies in self-government in territories paid for by his ancestors."
A diplomatic row erupted last month when Brandon Huntley, a white South African, was granted refugee status by Canada after claiming he had been attacked because of his race.
Terre'Blanche said he wanted to organise a referendum for those wanting an independent homeland, ...
... to the United Nations."
The AWB – whose flag resembles a Nazi swastika – was founded in 1973 with the aim of maintaining white supremacy by any means.
White rightwing activity in South Africa faded after the end of apartheid, helped in part by Terre'Blanche's imprisonment in 2001 for the attempted murder of a security guard and assault on a petrol attendant in 1997.
Political ...
... than 21 members of the shadowy Boeremag (Boer Force) remain on trial for treason after being arrested in 2001 and accused of a bombing campaign aimed at overthrowing the government.
Before South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994, the AWB deployed thousands of armed white rightists in Bophuthatswana, a puppet black "homeland" under apartheid, in an abortive attempt to prevent the overthrow of its president. The AWB was humiliated and forced to pull out.
In 1998, Terre'Blanche accepted "political and moral responsibility" before South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission for a bombing campaign to disrupt the 1994 elections in which 21 people were killed and hundreds injured.
Jacob Zuma, who took office as president in May, ...
... song that will not work," said Ishmael Mnisi, a spokesman. "There is no way we are going back to the era of apartheid where particular ethnic groups declare their own independence.
"South Africa is a democratic country. People have a right to raise issues as long as they're within the constitution."
Allister Sparks, a journalist and political analyst, said: "Eugene Terre'Blanche is a discredited ...
Source: Factiva
http://factiva.com/index_f_w.asp
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