Eugene Terre'Blanche

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Eugene Ney Terre'Blanche (Born January 31, 1941) is a South African White seperatist, Boer nationalist and leader of the AWB, a White political movement in South Africa. He was, in June 2004, released from prison after serving 3 years for assaulting a gas station attendant and for the attempted murder of one of his employees.

Early life

Terre'Blanche was born in the Western Transvaal town of Ventersdorp in 1941, reportedly to a conservative, Calvinist Afrikaner family. His father was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the South African Defense Force and his grandfather a General in the Boer War.

Terre'Blanche excelled at school and was Chairman of a debating societ whilst at school in Ventersdorp, he also acheived well in sports. He was captain of his school's first rugby team.

From 1985 until 2004 Terre'Blanche, in addition to his political and commercial responsibilities, ran his family's farm in Ventersdorp, which he, in 1985, inherited from his father.

Police

In the 1960s Terre'Blanche joined the South African Police, he was assigned to the Special Guard Unit, which was tasked with protecting VIPs and Cabinet Ministers. Rumours abounded that he was Prime Minister John Vorster's bodyguard, but this is untrue.

He attained the rank of Warrant Officer and, in 1968, was employed at the police recruitment offices in Pretoria, where he met Jan Groenewald. Groenewald was applying to the police at the time, he was accepted and Terre'Blanche and he became close friends. It was against this backdrop that Terre'Blanche became a right-winger, Groenewald persuaded him that the reforms to Apartheid that Prime Minister Vorster was making were damaging to Whites.

In the early 1970s Terre'Blanche briefly worked at Rondalia, a holiday resort association. Then he went to work for the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP. English= Re-constituted National Party), a right-wing party which opposed the ruling National Party's reforms to Apartheid. Terre'Blanche was an organiser until the HNP Deputy Leader, Jaap Marais, expelled him and Groenewald from the party (Groenewald too was a HNP organiser).

AWB

In the 1970 General election the HNP failed to win any seats in parliament, in fact Terre'Blanche himself was a candidate in the eastern Transvaal. So, in 1973, Terre'Blanche, Groenewald and 5 other Afrikaners founded the AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging/Afrikaner Resistance Movement).

When the HNP leadership found out that Terre'Blanche and Groenewald had secretly founded a new organisation they were both expelled and fired from their jobs as organisers.

Terre'Blanche worked as an insurance salesman in the town of Brits, Transvaal.

Early Militancy

In 1977 the South African government announced it was considering opening the Breyten Theatre, Pretoria, to all races. This caused concern and anger amongst a large part of the White population. The Administrator of the Transvaal announced that opening public facilities (such as the state-owned Breyten Theatre) to all races was contradictory to the racial laws of the Apartheid regime.

A group of liberal White actors and actresses began to petition the government to open the theatre to all races, whilst circulating their petition to the White public at a Pretoria shopping mall, Eugene Terre'Blanche and 35 other AWB members engaged them.

Terre'Blanche and the group of actors exchanged a few angry words, Terre'Blanche and his posse then proceeded to rip all of the petition papers into tiny pieces. It was captured on film and became known as the first "militant" action undertaken by the AWB.

Incident at the UNISA

On March 28th 1979 Terre'Blanche and 40 other AWB members tarred and feathered a History Professor, Floors Van Jaarsveld, as he gave a lecture at the University of South Africa. Van Jaarsveld had upset the AWB by disputing the relevance of the Day of the Vow (a sacred Christian Afrikaner date) in a modern society.

Terre'Blanche received a 600 Rand fine or 300 days imprisonment, he paid the fine. An additional 9 men were also punished for assault (ie tarring and feathering) and libel (known as crimen injuria in South African law), as well as two counts of damage to property (relating to the clothes of Van Jaarsveld and the carpet of the University of South Africa).

1980s

In the 1980s the AWB, often under the direct leadership of Terre'Blanche, disrupted rallies and meetings held by the National Party across the northern Transvaal and Orange Free State. In one such incident police used teargas to evict 5000 violent AWB supporters from a meeting hall in Pietersburg (now Polokwane).

In 1988 AWB membership, and support, peaked. Estimates range from 5000 to 70000 members, Terre'Blanche claims that the actual peak in membership was in 1994 and that, by then, the AWB had 80000 active members. Between 1978 and 1994 a total of 104000 applications for membership were made.

Namibia and UNTAG

In 1989 the territory of South West Africa (renamed Namibia in 1990) was still under South African occupation. It had been given to the Union of South Africa under a League of Nations mandate after the First World War, it had previously been a German colony.

In 1989 the South African government agreed to hold multi-racial elections there. The AWB had offices in the Namibian capital city, Windhoek, and a large following amongst the White population of Namibia.

In the run-up to the elections the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) had established stations there to govern the territory during the period of transition from White rule to SWAPO (South West African People's Organisation) rule.

Five AWB members, under the leadership of the AWB's Johannesburg leader, Leonard Veenendaal, attacked an UNTAG base in Outjo, northern Namibia. Phosphorous grenades were thrown and it was riddled with machine gun fire. One UNTAG guard, Michael Hoaseb, was killed in the attack.

The men were apprehended and sent, on December 4th, to Outjo district court to stand trial. En route they escaped, and in the processes killed one of the policemen escorting them, Constable Van Wyck (who was shot in the stomach by Veenendaal).

The men escaped to South Africa and, in 1997, before the South African government could deport them to stand trial in Namibia had fled to Britain.

The Namibian government, with the assistance of Interpol, are still trying to have the two men, who are in Britain, extradited to stand trial.

Battle of Ventersdorp=

Terre'Blanche and 2000 AWB supporters led a march on a National Party meeting being addresed by President DeKlerk on August 9 1991 in Ventersdorp. In an ensuing gunfight 7 policemen were shot, 43 AWB members wounded (3 killed) and 15 innocent bystanders injured).

Bophuthatswana

In 1994 the AWB were the victim of an international media hate campaign after they propped up the supposed dictatorship of Bantustan leader Lucas Mangope.

It was alleged that the 750 AWB paramilitary members who went into Bophuthatswana shot and killed 5 or more innocent Black civilians. Although no prosectuions were ever brought so the truth of the matter is unknown.

Amnesty

In 1998 Terre'Blanche, and ex-AWB Deputy Leader Piet Rudolph, were granted amnesty for the tarring and feathering of Professor Van Jaarsveld, the illegal possession of arms and ammunition in 1982 and the Battle of Ventersdorp.

In an affidavit submitted to the Truth and Reconcilliation Commision Terre'Blanche said he felt responsible, personally, for the bombings commited by AWB members.

Jail sentence

In 2000 Terre'Blanche was jailed for two attacks on an employee of his, who worked on his farm, and a gas station attendant in 1996. According to the gas station attendant, John Ndizma (who was interviewed for the documentary His Big White Self), Terre'Blanche made his dog attack him because John had told the police that a White youth had broken into the gas station pharmacy.

Terre'Blanche, allegedly drunk at the time, severely assaulted Paul Motshabe, an employee who worked on his farm, leaving his permanently paralysed. In the 2006 documentary His Big White Self, Motshabe claimed that Terre'Blanche hit him with a revolver and then slammed his head in the door of a truck, while in court he claimed Terre'Blanche hit him with a metal pipe.

Terre'Blanche was, in March 2000, jailed for 7 years (1 year for the assault on John Ndizma and 6 years for the attempted murder of Paul Motshabe). Whilst incarcerated he was a "model prisoner" and was, accordingly, paroled in June 2004.

Due to financial pressure his wife sold his farm to cover legal costs.

Reactivation of the AWB

In early 2008 Terre'Blanche announced he was intending to re-launch the AWB (which had very few members in post-Apartheid South Africa) due to pleas from Whites who were scared, due to South Africa's crime rate.

Sources

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