TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 6

Subsection 4

BOEREWEERSTANDSBEWEGING

34. The Boereweerstandsbeweging (BWB)^{2 2 6} was established in 1991 as one of the most radical and potentially most violent groupings. Led by Mr Andrew Ford, a farmer from the Rustenburg area, the BWB was strongly influenced by the ideas of Mr Robert van To n d e r ’s Boerestaat Party^{2 2 7} Its organisation was based on a cell structure, and the separate cells were not supposed to have knowledge of one another. These cells were associated with numerous bombings, notably the bombing of an Indian business area at Bronkhorstspruit in October 1993 in which a police officer was killed when he went to investigate a suspicious-looking parcel (see below). Those implicated in the bombing allegedly belonged to the Cullinan cell of the BWB.

35. Ford also laid claim to the establishment of the Boere Republikeinse Leër (BRL).²²⁸ The BRL was launched in 1991 when a document was circulated in far right-wing circles, calling on right-wingers to join. The BRL claimed responsibility, through anonymous callers, for various acts of sabotage that later turned out to be the work of other organisations or individuals. Doubts have been expressed as to whether the BRL actually existed or whether it was just one of several so-called ‘telephone ghosts’ of the right.

36. BWB deputy leader, Mr Piet Rudolph, went on to form the more militant Orde Boerevolk (OB), which declared war on the government through the medium of a videotape posted to an Afrikaans newspaper. At the time, Rudolph was on the run from the law following the theft of weapons from the SADF to launch the so-called ‘Third War of Freedom’. By 1993, OB members had been organised in underground cells and were preparing for war. They were responsible for a number of violent acts and violations in the early 1990s.

37. At this time, the AWB created local self-protection committees modelled on the neighbourhood watch system in many right-wing towns, including Blanke Veiligheid (White Safety) in Welkom; Brandwag (Sentinel) in Brits; Aksie Selfbeskerming (Action Self-Protection) in Klerksdorp and Die Flaminke (Flamingos) in Virginia. Some engaged in vigilante actions such as the enforcement of the ‘white-by-night’ curfew instituted by the AWB across the country in 1990. On several occasions, these organisations entered into conflict with black residents in the towns and adjacent townships, particularly during consumer boycotts. During such incidents, white vigilantes encountered little or no intervention from law enforcement agencies.

VEKOM AND THE AFRIKANER VOLKSFRONT

38. In the wake of the 1993 killing of Chris Hani, a group of retired SADF generals founded the Volkseenheidskomittee (Ve k o m )^{2 2 9}, a well co-ordinated movement which established regional committees in the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

Vekom aimed to create a paramilitary structure to facilitate access to armaments and other resources during the run-up to the 1994 election. Together with up to sixty-five other organisations, the formation of a ‘right wing front’ was discussed and the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) was conceived, drawing in a broad spectrum of right wing groups. These included the CP, the HNP, Afrikaner Volksunie, the Afrikaner Vryheidstigting (Avstig), the Wêreld Apartheid Beweging (WAB)²³⁰, the Boere Vryheidsbeweging²³¹, the Pretoria Boerekommando Group , Vekom, the Mine Workers’ Union, the Church of the Creator, the Oranjewerkers-Vereniging and some business and other church groupings. The AWB was also persuaded to participate. Later the BWB and the BRL also supported the front . The front’s rallying call was for a volkstaat.

39. While the AWB fell in with the AV F, the latter’s formation in May 1993 came as a blow to Eugene Te r re’Blanche, who now found himself sidelined. Terre ’ Blanch e had liked to see himself as the strongest force in extra-parliamentary right-wing politics and the AWB as the original and true carrier of the volks t a a t ideal . Tensions erupted in March 1994 when three AWB members were killed during the Bophuthatswana debacle. Shortly thereafter, AVF leader General Constand Viljoen cited AWB lack of discipline as one of the main reasons for the failure of a right wing, and resigned from the AVF directorate. For their part, the AWB and Te r re’Blanche accused Viljoen of being a traitor.

THE FREEDOM ALLIANCE

40. The Freedom Alliance (FA), which grew out of the Concerned South Africans G roup (COSAG) in 1993, was a political pressure group comprising the AVF, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the Ciskei and Bophuthatswana homeland governments and the CP. All its members had at one stage or another pulled out of the multi-party negotiations, giving as their central reason their perception that the NP and ANC were pushing a pre-determined agenda past the other parties.

41. For its part, the FA pushed a strong regional agenda. Some of its members subscribed to confederalism and others to federalism, following the principles of the right to self-determination, the protection and promotion of free enterprise and the limitations of powers of central government. The AVF’s General Viljoen spoke on behalf of the alliance at a meeting in Pietersburg during July 1993, saying that the potential for conflict was so high that a bloodbath was unavoidable if the demands of the alliance were not recognised.

42. However, General Viljoen ultimately supported participation in the democratic elections in 1994.