The 1996 Shoprite bombing was a white supremacist terrorist attack that took place on 24 December 1996 after a bomb was detonated at a Shoprite supermarket in Worcester, South Africa killing 4 people and wounding several others. [1] A second bomb placed in a tree down the street at a local pharmacy was also detonated, injuring 2 sitting nearby. [1] [2]
The four men involved in the bombings, who were all members of the Israel Vision religious sect, were Abraham "Koper" Myburgh, Cliff Barnard, Jan "Voetbol" van der Westhuizen and Stefaans Coetzee. Coetzee was 17 at the time of bombing. [3] All four men were part of the Afrikaner nationalist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist paramilitary organisation Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, or AWB for short. [3]
On 24 December 1996, Jan van der Westhuizen walked into a Shoprite store in Worcester and discreetly planted a bomb in a Christmas tree decoration. [4] The attackers left four explosive devices, only blasting two, despite this the explosion killed four civilians (including three children). [5] [6]
Abraham "Koper" Myburgh, Cliff Barnard, Jan van der Westhuizen, and Stefaans Coetzee were all found guilty of murder. With the exception of Coetzee, who received a 40-year sentence, each of the men received life terms. Coetzee was released on parole in July 2015. He has since recanted his views and met with the relatives of some of his victims in an act of reconciliation. [7] [8] [9]
John Maxwell Coetzee FRSL OMG is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in the English language. He has won the Booker Prize (twice), the CNA Literary Award (thrice), the Jerusalem Prize, the Prix Femina étranger, and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and holds a number of other awards and honorary doctorates.
The Freedom Front Plus is a right-wing political party in South Africa that was formed in 1994. It is led by Pieter Groenewald. Since 2024, it is a part of the current South African government of national unity together with the African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance and other parties.
The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, commonly known by its abbreviation AWB, is an Afrikaner nationalist, white supremacist, and neo-Nazi political party in South Africa. Since its founding in 1973 by Eugène Terre'Blanche and six other far-right Afrikaners, it has been dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an independent Boer-Afrikaner republic or "Volkstaat/Boerestaat" in part of South Africa. During bilateral negotiations to end apartheid in the early 1990s, the organisation terrorised and killed black South Africans.
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was an Afrikaner nationalist who founded and led the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. Prior to founding the AWB, he served as a South African Police officer, was a farmer, and was an unsuccessful Herstigte Nasionale Party candidate for local office in the Transvaal. He was a major figure in the right-wing backlash against the collapse of apartheid. His beliefs and philosophy have continued to be influential amongst white supremacists in South Africa and across the world.
Joost van der Westhuizen was a South African professional rugby union player who made 89 appearances in test matches for the national team, scoring 38 tries. He mostly played as a scrum-half and participated in three Rugby World Cups, most notably in the 1995 tournament, which was won by South Africa. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest scrumhalves of all time.
The 2002 Soweto bombings were a string of terrorist attacks that occurred in Soweto in South Africa's Gauteng province. Eight blasts took place on 30 October 2002, leaving one woman dead and her husband severely injured. One of the blasts severely damaged a mosque, while others targeted railways and petrol stations in the area. SAPS prevented one blast. Another bomb later detonated outside the Nan Hua Buddhist temple in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria. A white supremacist group, the Warriors of the Boer Nation, claimed responsibility for these explosions in a message sent to an Afrikaans newspaper.
Eugene Alexander de Kock is a former South African Police colonel, torturer, and assassin, active under the apartheid government. Nicknamed "Prime Evil" by the press, De Kock was the commanding officer of C10, a counterinsurgency unit of the SAP that kidnapped, tortured, and murdered numerous terrorists from the 1980s to the early 1990s. C10's victims included members of the African National Congress.
The 1994 Bophuthatswana crisis was a major political crisis which began after Lucas Mangope, the president of Bophuthatswana, a nominally independent South African bantustan created under apartheid, attempted to crush widespread labour unrest and popular demonstrations demanding the incorporation of the territory into South Africa pending non-racial elections later that year. Violent protests immediately broke out following President Mangope's announcement on 7 March that Bophuthatswana would boycott the South African general elections. This was escalated by the arrival of right-wing Afrikaner militias seeking to preserve the Mangope government. The predominantly black Bophuthatswana Defence Force and police refused to cooperate with the white extremists and mutinied, then forced the Afrikaner militias to leave Bophuthatswana. The South African military entered Bophuthatswana and restored order on 12 March.
The South African Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), was a government-sponsored death squad, during the apartheid era. The CCB, operated under the authority of Defence Minister General Magnus Malan. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee pronounced the CCB guilty of numerous killings, and suspected more killings.
Johann Vincent van der Westhuizen is a South African who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 2004 to January 2016. He was a professor of law at the University of Pretoria from 1980 to 1999, when he joined the bench as a judge of the High Court of South Africa.
The White Liberation Movement was a small but notorious South African neo-Nazi organisation which became infamous after being banned under the Apartheid regime, the first right-wing organisation to be so banned. It regarded itself as the most far-right organisation in South Africa.
The Suidlanders is a South African right-wing ethnonationalist Afrikaner survivalist group whose ideology is based on the prophecies of Boer Siener van Rensburg. The group believes that a race war or general civil war, sometimes referred to as "Uhuru" or the "Night of the Long Knives", is coming in South Africa. They anticipate an eventual collapse of infrastructure, and advocate and plan for an evacuation of white South Africans from major cities in the event of a race war. The group has claimed success in raising global awareness of the claimed threat, following a 2017 tour to the United States by spokesperson Simon Roche, and has also taken credit for an offer by Australian government minister Peter Dutton to preferentially grant refugee visas to white South African farmers.
The flag of South Africa from 1928 to 1994 was the flag of the Union of South Africa from 1928 to 1961 and later the flag of the Republic of South Africa until 1994. It was also the flag of South West Africa to 1990, when that territory was under South African administration. Based on the Dutch Prince's Flag, it contained the flag of the United Kingdom, the flag of the Orange Free State, and the flag of the South African Republic (respectively) in the centre. A nickname for the flag was Oranje, Blanje, Blou.
Steyn von Rönge is a South African farmer and the incumbent president of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). He was born to George Napier van Ryneveld and Elsie Catharina. He is married to Cornelia. von Rönge was the deputy leader of the AWB who took over the reins after Eugene Terre'Blanche, the founding president, was murdered 3 April 2010. He had previously acted as leader of the AWB when Terre'Blanche was in prison.
"Dubul' ibhunu", translated as shoot the Boer, as kill the Boer or as kill the farmer, is a controversial anti-apartheid South African song. It is sung in Xhosa or Zulu. The song originates in the struggle against apartheid when it was first sung to protest the Afrikaner-dominated apartheid government of South Africa.
Andricus Pieter van der Westhuizen is a South African politician who served as a Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament from May 2019 until May 2024. Prior to serving in the provincial parliament, he served in the national parliament as a Member of the National Assembly from May 2009 until May 2019. Van der Westhuizen is a member of the Democratic Alliance.
Jacobus Hercules "Koos" van der Merwe is a South African former politician. He was a member of the South African Parliament, representing the National Party, Conservative Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). He was a member of the House of Assembly and later the South African National Assembly between 1977 and 2014, being the longest serving member of Parliament at the time of his retirement.
Albutt v Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Others is a 2010 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which concerned a special presidential dispensation to pardon the perpetrators of politically motivated crimes committed during the apartheid era. The Constitutional Court held that the President of South Africa had contravened the Constitution in deciding not to consult the victims of those crimes before granting the pardons. The unanimous judgment was written by Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo and delivered on 23 February 2010.
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