ANC Youth Leader: South Africa Will Seize White-Owned Farms

http://www1.voanews.com/

Peta Thornycroft | Johannesburg 04 April 2010

African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, at a rally in
Harare in neighboring Zimbabwe, 3 April 2010

The controversial youth leader of South Africa's African National Congress
has praised Zimbabwe's program for taking over thousands of white-owned
farms, and says his country will follow the example.  Comments were made at
a rally organized by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in Zimbabwe.
ANC Youth Wing leader Julius Malema told a few hundred ZANU-PF youth members
the South African party would follow Zimbabwe's lead, and soon take over
white farms in South Africa.

Speaking Saturday at a small Harare stadium, he said Zimbabwe had led the
"fight over land" and encouraged Zimbabweans to also take over white and
foreign-owned companies.

Mulema was in Zimbabwe at the invitation of ZANU-PF Indigenization Minister
Saviour Kasukuwere, who has decreed that black Zimbabweans must own 51
percent of all Zimbabwean companies.

Regulations to support the indigenous legislation were published earlier
this year, but Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) trade and industry
legislator Welshman Ncube said they had not gone through due parliamentary
process and must be re-done.

Malema said people must "embrace indigenization."

He said ZANU-PF and the ANC "fought together in the trenches" for liberation
and must continue to fight against what he called Western imperialism.

Malema said he would not be meeting the MDC, the other main partner in the
power-sharing government that won the 2008 elections.  He said this was
because it had not taken part in the 1970s anti-colonial war.  The Movement
for Democratic Change was formed in 1999.

ZANU-PF accuses the MDC of being a product of Western imperialism.

Malema seized on this theme at the rally.

"We are aware of the imperialists and, in particular, of the West giving
them money to take liberation movements out of power," he said.  "They are
doing that with the ANC in South Africa.  They are doing that with all
progressive forces in Africa.  You are not alone.  Your struggle is our
struggle."

Malema surprised some ZANU-PF members when he told them not to engage in
violence during elections.  Hundreds of MDC supporters have been killed and
tens of thousands injured since the MDC fought its first election in 2000.

"This rumor that you are using violence in Zimbabwe, is going to make ZANU
[PF] lose elections," he added.  "You must engage ideologically.  This is an
ideological warfare.  We must be prepared to change the minds of our people
and educate them to understand where do we want to take this country to, not
through violence."

Malema told ZANU-PF youth members he would continue singing the ANC struggle
song, "Kill the Boer," or the white farmer, even if it meant being sent to
jail.  A South African court last week banned the controversial song.

He sang the song at the rally and a few ZANU-PF members struggled to sing
along in Malema's Zulu home language.

White supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche is hacked to death after row with farmworkers

Two suspects held over killing of South Africa's Nazi-inspired AWB leader as he slept in his bed

• David Smith, Johannesburg
• The Observer, Sunday 4 April 2010

Eugene Terre'Blanche waves to his supporters after he was released from prison in Potchefstroom in June 2004 after he had served part of a five-year sentence for the attempted murder of a black security guard. Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

A notorious white supremacist who once threatened to wage war rather than allow black rule in South Africa was hacked to death at his farm yesterday following an argument with two employees. Eugene Terre'Blanche's mutilated body was found on his bed along with a broad-blade knife and a wooden club, police said.

"He was hacked to death while he was taking a nap," one family friend, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters.

Local media quoted a member of Terre'Blanche's Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging party (Afrikaner Resistance Movement, or AWB) as saying that the 69-year-old had been beaten with pipes and machetes. Police said two males, thought to be workers on the farm, have been arrested and will appear in court on Tuesday.

Terre'Blanche, with striking blue eyes and white beard, was the voice of hardline opposition to the end of racial apartheid in the early 1990s, and the AWB was infamous for its swastika-like symbols and neo-Nazi anthems. But he had been in relative obscurity since his release in 2004 after a prison sentence for beating a black man nearly to death.

Last year he attempted a comeback, announcing plans to rally far-right groups and to apply to the United Nations for a breakaway Afrikaner republic.

His death comes amid heightened racial tension in South Africa, where Julius Malema, leader of the youth wing of the governing African National Congress, has caused anger by singing a struggle song with the words, "Shoot the Boer". Terre'Blanche called himself a Boer, which means farmer in Afrikaans.

Civil rights groups say that 3,000 white farmers have been killed since the end of apartheid and accuse Malema of inciting further violence against them. Last week a high court banned Malema from repeating the lyric but he did so yesterday during a visit to Zimbabwe.

Police in South Africa's North West province said last night that Terre'Blanche had been attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terre'Blanche was attacked by a man and a minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument about unpaid wages at around 6pm, the South African Press Association reported.

"Mr Terre'Blanche's body was found on the bed with facial and head injuries," Myburgh said. "There was a panga [broad-blade knife] on him and knobkerrie [wooden club] next to the bed. A 21-year-old man and 15-year-old boy were arrested and charged for his murder. The two told the police that the argument ensued because they were not paid for the work they did on the farm." She added that Terre'Blanche was alone with the two workers at the time of the attack.

The opposition Democratic Alliance expressed "outrage and concern" at Terre'Blanche's murder and cited the recent controversy triggered by Malema.

Terre'Blanche founded the white supremacist AWB in 1970, to oppose what he regarded as the liberal policies of the then South African leader, John Vorster. His party tried terrorist tactics and threatened civil war in the run-up to South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, won by the ANC and Nelson Mandela, who became the country's first black president.

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.

Terre'Blanche's credibility as a political leader collapsed after the anti-black threats voiced by the extreme white right proved to be little more than bluster. Revelations of his extramarital affairs also undermined his reputation with religious Afrikaners. He was jailed for assaulting a black petrol attendant and the attempted murder of a black security guard, serving three years of a five-year term before his release in 2004.

He said last year that he had revived the AWB after several years of inactivity and that it would join with like-minded forces to push for secession from South Africa. "The circumstances in the country demanded it," he told South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper. "The white man in South Africa is realising that his salvation lies in self-government in territories paid for by his ancestors."

Terre'Blanche said he wanted to organise a referendum for those who wanted an independent homeland, where English would be an accepted language along with Afrikaans. "It's now about the right of a nation that wants to separate itself from a unity state filled with crime, death, murder, rape, lies and fraud."

Political analysts say that white extremists have little support, but more 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.

President Jacob Zuma, who took office in May, has courted Afrikaners at a series of meetings, assuring them they have nothing to fear from his government. Last week he visited an impoverished white community near Pretoria.

SAfrican white supremacists: Slaying was 'war'

http://www.salon.com

SUNDAY Apr 04, 2010 14:42 EST

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press

Followers of one of South Africa's most notorious white supremacists cast
his death as a rallying point for their cause Sunday, with one top member
claiming his brutal death was "a declaration of war" by blacks against
whites.

Eugene Terreblanche's supporters blamed his slaying on a ruling party
official's performances of an apartheid-era song that advocates killing
white farmers. Police, however, say it appeared to be a wage dispute that
led two of Terreblanche's farm workers to bludgeon him in his bed Saturday.

South African officials are trying to ward off any rise in racial tensions
10 weeks before their country of about 50 million enters the global
spotlight as host of soccer's World Cup. President Jacob Zuma appealed for
calm following "this terrible deed" and asked South Africans "not to allow
agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or
fueling racial hatred."

Police Minister Nathi Mthetwa said Terreblanche was attacked by a
28-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy, both black. Mthetwa said they were
arrested and would appear in court Tuesday on murder charges.

Terreblanche, a bearded, charismatic 69-year-old, co-founded and led the
Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, better known as the AWB, which seeks
an all-white republic within mostly black South Africa. Its red, white and
black insignia resembles a Nazi swastika, but with three prongs instead of
four.

Terreblanche emerged in the 1970s to the right of South Africa's apartheid
government, and had threatened to take the country by force if white rule
ended. He was known to arrive at meetings on horseback flanked by masked
bodyguards dressed in khaki or black.

After serving six years in prison for attacking two black workers, he
re-emerged in 2004 with renewed vigor for his cause. He lived in relative
obscurity in recent years on his farm outside Ventersdorp, about 110
kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.

Andre Visagie, a top AWB member, said Terreblanche's face had been
bludgeoned beyond recognition. He said his group would avenge Terreblanche's
death, but he gave no details.

"The death of Mr. Terreblanche is a declaration of war by the black
community of South Africa to the white community that has been killed for 10
years on end," Visagie said.

He also said the group will urge soccer teams to avoid the World Cup out of
safety concerns.

Visagie would not say how many people belong to the AWB. At the height of
its influence in the early 1990s, it was believed to have no more than
70,000 members.

Visagie echoed other members of the group in blaming African National
Congress Youth Leader Julius Malema, saying he spread hate speech that led
to Terreblanche's killing.

Malema incited controversy last month when he led college students in a song
that includes the lyrics "shoot the Boer." Boer means white farmers in
Afrikaans, the language of descendants of early Dutch settlers, or
Afrikaners, and is often a derogatory term.

The song sparked a legal battle in which the ruling ANC party challenged a
high court that ruled the lyrics as unconstitutional. The ANC insists the
song is a valuable part of its cultural heritage and that the lyrics -- 
which also refer to the farmers as thieves and rapists -- are not intended
literally and are therefore not hate speech.

Visagie cited the controversy as he dismissed the condolences Zuma offered
to Terreblanche's family.

"My message to Jacob Zuma is 'Why, Mr. President, do you offer your
condolences to us if you could've repudiated Mr. Malema and prevented the
death of Mr. Terreblanche?'"

The ANC defended itself against the claims of Terreblanche's supporters
Sunday.

"The black community has never declared war on any other nationality in
South Africa," ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told The Associated Press. "It
is in fact incorrect and these are sentiments that fuel polarization of the
South African populace."

Malema denied responsibility during an official visit to neighboring
Zimbabwe.

"ANC will respond to that issue," he said "On a personal capacity, I'm not
going to respond to what people are saying. I'm in Zimbabwe now, I'm not
linked to this."

An unknown number of white farmers have been killed since the end of
apartheid in 1994, many of them in land disputes. Some critics blame the
government's badly organized land reform program and say corruption is a
problem. White farmers have also been accused of killing black farm workers.

Terreblanche's killing comes amid growing disenchantment among blacks for
whom the right to vote has not translated into jobs, better housing or
education.

Some consider themselves betrayed by leaders governing Africa's richest
country and pursuing a policy of black empowerment that has made
millionaires of a tiny black elite. Millions of blacks remain trapped in
poverty, even as whites continue to enjoy a privileged lifestyle.

Mthetwa, the police minister, appealed for calm.

"We call on all South Africans, across whatever divide ... to desist from
making any inflammatory statements which are not going to help in any way on
the case we are dealing with," he said. "Nobody should obstruct us by what
he or she says pertaining to this case."

Relatives and friends of Terreblanche gathered near his homestead Sunday
morning to pay their respects. In the nearby black township of Tshing, two
police cars were dispatched from the nearest city to patrol.

Lawrence Schlemmer, vice president of the conservative Institute for Race
Relations, said he believes Terreblanche's death is a personal matter and
would have little impact.

"Eugene Terreblanche has become an increasingly marginal figure," he said,
adding, "I think it's a personal tragedy more than anything else. I don't
think there's any political significance, although I suppose there will be a
measure of sympathy because of the individual circumstances. He's had a
rough life, and this is a rough ending."

------

Associated Press Writers Chengetai Zvauya in Harare, Zimbabwe and Anita
Powell in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

Zuma calls for calm after Terre’Blanche murder

http://www.ft.com/

By Richard Lapper in Johannesburg

Published: April 4 2010 12:39 | Last updated: April 4 2010 12:39

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has appealed for calm following the
murder of the fanatical white separatist, Eugene Terre’Blanche. Mr Terre’Blanche,
who won notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s for his violent campaign to
stop the dismantling of the apartheid system, was battered to death on
Saturday at his farm in Ventersdorp, 100 miles north-west of Johannesburg.

His killing comes comes amid anxiety about a possible rise in racial
tensions in some rural areas, partly fuelled by fresh controversy
surrounding Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of the governing African
National Congress’s unruly youth league. Mr Malema who has recently taken at
public gatherings to singing a song entitled “Kill the Boer, Kill the
 Farmer” that dates from the armed struggle to overthrow apartheid was
recently banned from doing so by one of the country’s high courts on the
grounds that it was unconstitutional.

Mr Terre’Blanche, 69, was killed following an argument with two young black
workers over wages. Both suspects have been arrested said police chiefs who
have visited the dead man’s family.

Mr Zuma condemned in the “strongest possible terms” the killing and in a
statement asked: “South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take
advantage of this situation by inciting or fuelling racial hatred.”  South
Africa’s main opposition party also moved swiftly to “urge calm”.

Hellen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance, however, warned that the
murder would “inevitably polarize and inflame passions in South Africa at a
time when tensions are already running high. This could have tragic
consequences and it is essential that all leaders stand together now.”

Although Mr Zuma’s ANC has condemned the legal ruling against Mr Malema, Ms
Zille warned that the singing of such songs “creates a climate in which
violence is seen as an appropriate response to problems, whether personal or
collective.”

Afriforum, an Afrikaner rights group that has lodged the original complaint
against Mr Malema, said “all communities – white, as well as black – should
refrain from reckless statements and from romanticising violence.”

Mr Malema spent the weekend in Zimbabwe, where he again sang the “Kill the
Boer” song, arguing that the interdict did not apply in the neighbouring
country. Mr Malema was visiting Zimbabwe to cement ties with Robert Mugabe’s
Zanu PF and wanted to learn more about that government’s nationalisation
plans.

The Youth League leader has repeatedly called for South Africa’s
strategically important mining industry to be nationalised. The ANC
government has repeatedly insisted that nationalisation is not its policy,
although the administration does intend to form a state-owned mining
company.

Mr Malema will shortly visit Venezuela, Cuba, China, Brazil and Chile on a
tour of nationalisation programmes.

Malema hears Zimplats’ indigenisation plans

http://www.zimonline.co.za

by Own Correspondent Monday 05 April 2010

HARARE – African National Congress (ANC) youth league leader Julius Malema
on Sunday toured platinum giant Zimplats where he heard proposed black
empowerment plans by Zimbabwe’s largest single investor.

The firebrand youth leader of South Africa’s ruling ANC party arrived in
Harare on Friday on a visit to study President Robert Mugabe's efforts to
nationalise the economy.

Sources who attended the meeting at Zimplats said Malema, who has called for
nationalisation of South African firms, did not say anything during the
closed door meeting with Zimplats management and officials where he heard
submissions Zimplats had made to comply with the country’s 51 percent
empowerment laws announced by indigenization Minister Saviour Kasukuwere
last February.

"Malema did not say anything during that meeting," a source said speaking on
condition that they were not named. "He just sat there, quietly listening to
the discussion. Nothing much was discussed because minister Saviour
Kasukuwere was not in.”

Zimplats and beverages conglomerate Delta are some of the big
foreign-controlled firms operating in Zimbabwe that have submitted
empowerment proposals in compliance with government’s indigenisation
regulations.

The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act which was gazetted in
February and became effective on March states that foreign firms valued at a
half a billion dollars or more should cede 51 percent of their shareholding
to locals.

The indigenisation regulations gave foreign-owned companies 45 days to
submit proposals to the government on how they plan to bring on board the
locals quota.

The indigenisation rules have been a source of controversy and besides
dividing the unity government along party lines, they have rattled foreign
investors who analysts say may continue to stay away from the country.

Critics fear Mugabe’s ZANU PF party wants to press ahead with transferring
majority ownership of foreign-owned companies as part of a drive to reward
party loyalists with thriving businesses.

Mugabe's decade-long invasions of white-owned farms which the 86-year-old
leader says were necessary to ensure blacks also had access to arable land
that they were denied by previous white-led governments have been blamed for
plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages.

Once a net food exporter Zimbabwe has avoided mass starvation over the past
decade only because international relief agencies were quick to chip in with
food handouts.

Meanwhile Malema addressed a ZANU PF rally on Saturday at Stodart Hall in
Harare’s Mbare suburb where he denounced targeted sanctions Western nations
imposed on Mugabe and his inner circle over human rights abuses.

"We as ANC we stand them against the issue of sanctions,” said Malema. "We
must survive with or without the sanctions.’

Speaking on South African President Jacob Zuma’s mediation efforts in the
ongoing power-sharing talks between Zimbabwe’s coalition partners Malema
told ZANU PF supporters that Zuma was only a facilitator, Zimbabweans were
responsible for their destiny.

“President Zuma can only act as a mediator to the problems of Zimbabwe, but
the solution must come from the people of Zimbabwe themselves, but we
support the armed struggle," he said.

Zuma is the Southern African Development Community’s mediator in Zimbabwe
and had given Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and the two former opposition MDC
formations of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur
Mutambara up to last Monday to resolve their differences and submit a report
to him, a deadline the Zimbabweans failed to meet.

The Zimbabwean talks have dragged on since the country’s three main
political parties agreed to form a power-sharing government in February
2009. – ZimOnline

Open letter to President Mugabe

http://www.zimonline.co.za

by Psychology Maziwisa Monday 05 April 2010

OPINION: Head of State and Government, Commander-in-Chief of the Defence
Forces, Your Excellency President of the Republic of Zimbabwe

I imagine that you are aware of the political, economic and social standing
of our country and hope that sooner rather than later you will find it
within yourself to do what is right for the millions of Zimbabweans who, in
1980, made a democratic choice and overwhelmingly mandated you to lead them
"through a free and fair election, conducted in the full glare of the world's
spotlight".

You delivered a moving speech on April 17 1980 in which you correctly
elevated unity over enmity, foresight over hindsight, love over hate and
democracy over oppression.

You explained, Mr President, that "our majority rule could easily turn into
inhuman rule if we oppressed, persecuted or harassed those who do not look
or think like the majority of us". I am not precisely sure you are still in
the majority but it was a point well made.

"Democracy," you said, "is never mob rule. It is and should remain
disciplined rule requiring compliance with the law and social rules." You
explained further: "Our independence must thus not be construed as an
instrument vesting individuals or groups with the right to harass and
intimidate others into acting against their will." Indeed.

Thirty years on, however, Zimbabwe is stuck with the same head of state and
government, and commander-in-chief of the defence forces. If you must know,
Mr President, this tragic state of affairs has not come about of our own
volition. The right to vote for a government of our choice has effectively
been negated through ZANU PF's manipulation of the political environment by
means of sustained violence, intimidation, abduction and unlawful killings
contrary, Mr President, to your fine words of April 17, 1980.

All these atrocities have been, and continue to be, committed largely by the
government over which you preside. Given the protracted period of their
occurrence and their sustained nature it is almost impossible to suppose
that this has all been happening outside of your knowledge. Indeed, there is
compelling evidence both tacit and express that you have been and still are
behind these inequities every step of the way.

I fail to comprehend how as a person and as a Zimbabwean you choose to
remain indifferent to the hungry and desperate voices of the very people you
purport to lead.

Zimbabwean culture enjoins me to relate to you with deference owing to the
age disparity between ourselves but the truth of the matter, Mr President,
is that I am literally disgusted by your sort of leadership especially in
the light of your stunning indifference to a humanitarian crisis occasioned
by your own greed and that of your stalwarts.

Let me, in the interest of brevity, set aside the Gukurahundi atrocity in
which about 20 000 innocent Zimbabweans were killed at your behest. Let me,
for now, set aside the fact that many people were persecuted, some of them
unlawfully killed in the period leading up to and during the 2002
presidential election. I will ignore, for now, Mr President, the bloodshed
towards and during both the March 29 harmonised election and the June 27
presidential run-off.

I am again going to suspend any discussion of Murambatsvina which had the
direct effect of displacing hundreds of thousands of our people, effectively
rendering them refugees in their own country and disrupted school for
countless children.

Mr President, I choose again to leave the Chiadzwa fiasco untouched despite
members of the military having killed between 200 and 300 of our innocent
people there, dozens of them women and children.

Let me instead draw your attention to the global political agreement (GPA)
in pursuance of which the inclusive government was born. It is a matter of
public record that it is not your intention to honour this agreement let
alone help in the restoration of democracy to Zimbabwe.

You are alive, Mr President, to the reality that ZANU PF cannot and will not
win any free and fair election. At least not in the foreseeable future.

It is your desire, therefore, to frustrate the work of the unity government
by today creating the impression that you are committed to the letter of the
GPA only to surprise every progressive soul with your seemingly intransigent
rhetoric tomorrow.

What kind of a leader sets conditions for the salvation of his own people?
Conditions to enjoy universally recognised basic liberties?

Yet I am certain, Mr President, that if you could be trusted to make good
your promise to allow democracy to prevail on those conditions being met;
the sanctions would go within hours. Unfortunately, you cannot be trusted.
It is as simple as that.

One would have hoped that instead of being lectured by the likes of Jacob
Zuma who, by all accounts, was your junior back in the day, on how to
concede this or that function and functionary, you devote your energies now
towards preparing Zimbabwe for a peaceful transition to democracy; that,
during the course of doing so, you negotiate your exit requesting written
undertakings from all concerned that you will be immune from prosecution
both domestically and internationally.

It is not helpful, Mr President, at age 86 to seek, by one means or another
to retain the presidency of a country you have already badly run for 30
years and left in a ruinous state. It is not helpful either to proudly
declare that if ZANU PF calls on me to stand for another term I shall gladly
do so.

Mr President, I implore you, in the circumstances, to find it within
yourself to recognise the gravity of the crisis caused by yourself and those
who had nothing to lose but everything to gain from your repressive rule.

The starting point for this, Mr President, is that you swiftly prepare for
your exit while helping prepare our country for the coming of democracy.

It is in the best interest of our country that you take this approach.
Democracy is coming. You may succeed in delaying, but never in stopping, the
coming of democracy to Zimbabwe. It is inescapable.

Yours sincerely,

Psychology Maziwisa - ZimOnline