Eugène Terre'Blanche
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Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche (born January 31, 1941) is a Boer-Afrikaner who founded the white supremacist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.
Descended from French Huguenot (Terre'Blanche means White Land in French) immigrants to South Africa who arrived in 1704 as refugees fleeing religious persecution in France along with many other Huguenot refugees to the Cape and elsewhere of the time, Terre'Blanche's grandfather fought for the Boer cause as a Cape Rebel in the Second Boer War, and his father was a lieutenant colonel in the South African Defence Force. Born in Ventersdorp, Terre'Blanche later became an officer in the South African Police.
During the late 1960s, Terre'Blanche began to increasingly oppose what he called the "liberal policies" of B. J. Vorster, the then Prime Minister of South Africa. In 1970, Terre'Blanche, along with six other Afrikaners, founded the Afrikanerweerstandsbeweging, more commonly known as the AWB. His oratory skills earned him much support amongst the white right wing in South Africa; the AWB claimed 70,000 members at its height.
Terre'Blanche viewed the end of apartheid as a surrender to communism, and threatened full scale race war if President FW de Klerk handed over power to Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress. When De Klerk addressed a meeting in Terre'Blanche's hometown of Ventersdorp, Terre'Blanche led a protest, and 'The Battle of Ventersdorp' ensued between the AWB and the police, with a number of people killed. Terre'Blanche also led an armed invasion of the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park while negotiations were in progress.
The AWB was humiliated while trying to prop up the autocratic leader of the Bophuthatswana bantustan in 1994 and, subsequently, Terre'Blanche did not follow up on his earlier threats of war. He was also personally humiliated by allegations of an affair with Jani Allen, an English speaking South African journalist, and by infamously falling off his horse.
On June 17, 1997 Terre'Blanche was sentenced to six years in prison for assaulting a petrol station worker and trying to murder a farm hand. One of only three whites in the Rooigrond prison near Mafikeng, Terre'Blanche was released in June, 2004. During his time in prison he was treated unusually well due to AWB sympathisers within the prison service. This meant that he spent the majority of his time in the prison hospital, also being allowed to tend to the prison farm and gardens. He also became a born-again Christian and claims he has dropped many of his more extreme racist views. However, the AWB website still claims these court cases and other scandals involving him were fabricated by the 'Black Government... and the left wing media' [1].
Following the end of apartheid, Terre'Blanche and his supporters sought amnesty for the storming of the World Trade Centre, the 'Battle of Ventersdorp', and other acts. Amnesty was granted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Terre'Blanche was lampooned in the 1991 documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife by British documentary maker Nick Broomfield. A sequel by Broomfield, His Big White Self, was first broadcast in February 2006.
The Terre'Blanche Name
The progenitor of the Terre'Blanche name in the region was a French Huguenot refugee named Estienne Terreblanche from Toulon (Provence) France who arrived at the Cape in 1704.Template:Ref The Terre'Blanche name has generally retained its original spelling though other spellings include: Terblanche and Terblans.
Notes
- Template:Note Ces Francais Qui Ont Fait L'Afrique Du Sud. Translation: The French People Who Made South Africa. Bernard Lugan. January 1996. ISBN: 2841000869'