Mourners sing South Africa's apartheid anthem at Eugene Terreblanche's funeral

Crowds: the white supremacist leader's coffin is taken to the church in Ventersdorp
12 April 2012

Hundreds of mourners sang South Africa's apartheid-era anthem at white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche's funeral today.

A crowd of about 3,000 gathered to watch Mr Terreblanche's body taken into the church in the rural north-western town of Ventersdorp in a closed coffin, which was covered in red and white flowers and the Nazi-like symbol of Afrikaner Resistance movement the AWB.

Two men wearing the group's military-style uniform stood at each end of the coffin and the 500 people in the Afrikaner protestant church rose and sang Die Stem, the Afrikaans former national anthem.

Security for the funeral was tight, with a police helicopter circling over the church. Police and army units were deployed to prevent possible clashes between supporters of Mr Terreblanche and the local black population.

The country's largest trade union, Cosatu, called a meeting to coincide with the funeral in the part of Ventersdorp where most of the town's poor blacks live, ensuring there would be no racial confrontations.

Although Mr Terreblanche's death — he was apparently killed in a wages dispute with two black farm workers — has not sparked wider violence, South African leaders have acknowledged that racial tensions remain 16 years after apartheid ended. But officials have played down any threat to the football World Cup that starts in Junea.

White militants say his death proves whites are not safe under Black majority rule. Black leaders say controlling crime - whether its victims are white or black - is a priority in a country with one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world.

Some mourners linked Mr Terreblanche's death to the fiery rhetoric of the youth leader of the governing African National Congress, Julius Malema, who in recent weeks revived an apartheid era song that refers to killing white farmers.

Kobus Rothmann, a Ventersdorp clergyman who described himself as a friend of Mr Terreblanche, said Malema should be reined in by more senior ANC leaders. "They just hate us, Malema hates us," he said at the funeral.

Two of Mr Terreblanche's workers have been charged with his murder.

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