Racial tensions are bubbling in the South African city of Ventersdorp after a black farmworker was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche.
The case has been a lightning rod for both whites and blacks, as the farmworker Chris Mahlangu, 30, has claimed he was acting in self defense by ridding the world of a racist monster.
The hate was on full display outside the courtroom just west of Johannesburg, where about 100 protestors sang anti-white songs in support of Mahlangu, while about 20 white protestors carried the doll of a black man with a rope around his neck and sign that read, “Hang Mahlangu.”
Mahlangu was found guilty of killing Terreblanche, 69, by beating him with an iron in April 2010.
Terreblanche was the co-founder of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known as the AWB. The AWB advocates for an all-white South Africa
Mahlangu was found guilty for beating Terreblanche, 69, to death with an iron in April 2010. Mahlangu said he feels he did no wrong by ridding the world of a man some called a monster.
Terreblanche co-founded the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known by its Afrikaans initials as the AWB, to seek an all-white republic within South Africa. He was sentenced in 1997 to six years in a South African prison for two racial crimes—attempted murder on a black security guard and the assault of a black gas station worker.
By the time he was killed, Terreblanche was no longer considered influential in the white supremacist movement—but his murder and Mahlangu’s trial served as a galvanizing force for white supremacists.
