AWB promises it will avenge the death of Eugene Terreblanche as President Zuma calls for calm.
A top member of a South African white supremacist group said Sunday that the slaying of their leader was “a declaration of war” by blacks against whites, as the president appealed for calm amid growing racial tensions in the once white-led country.
Andre Visagie of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, better known as the AWB, said the group would also urge soccer teams to avoid the upcoming World Cup tournament in South Africa out of safety concerns. He said the group would avenge the Saturday death of leader Eugene Terreblanche, but did not give 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 ten years on end,” Visagie said. He echoed other members of the group in blaming a fiery youth leader for spreading hate speech that he believes led to his killing.
The ruling African National Congress disputed Visagie’s statement.
“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.”
President Jacob Zuma appealed for calm following “this terrible deed.” In a statement, he asked “South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fueling racial hatred.”
Terreblanche’s violent death — police said he was bludgeoned to death by two of his farm workers in an apparent wage dispute — also heightened the din around an ongoing controversy over ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema’s performance last month of an apartheid-era song that advocates killing white farmers.