About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

25 Apr 1995: Terre'Blanche, Eugene

Click here for more information on the Interviewee

Click here for Overview of the year

POM. Mr Terre'Blanche, last February you went before parliament and you made a very passionate speech on behalf of your soldiers. You said let the soldiers go free, the war is over. My question is, what did you mean when you said the war was over?

ET. A new government took over South Africa. Before they took over they were involved, the same people who are the government now, they were involved in terrorism, etc., etc., in a struggle which they believed would lead us to independence and freedom. On the other hand the right wing people believed that they were fooled out of their fatherland by a bloke like Mr de Klerk who handed over his people without elections for a new constitution. He promised it in the past that before they are going to change the constitution he will come back to his electorate again. He did not do it, so right wingers tried to stop the election. Anyhow they tried to have resistance, to stop them taking their fatherland from them. But Mandela in the meantime promised democracy and freedom for all in his new government. But in the meantime they released more than 168 uMkhonto weSizwe members, members of the ANC, some of them were found guilty for even murder but what this government is doing now, right now, is they are keeping their political opponents in jail and in court cases without giving them amnesty. So I ask, the only real solution is, you can't keep people in jail for things they did while another government was in charge, so if he's honest to his people, up to his promises, then at least he must let them go, all of them, white and black.

. If they want to do what they tried in parliament, they want me to compromise that if my people go I will give up the struggle for an independent smaller South Africa for the Afrikaner nation. So I said, "No, if you people want to talk about peace, if you want to start, the starting point is (a), then you go over to (b), (c). Here I am now, it is (a) today. I am trying to create circumstances in which we can talk about freedom. You can't talk about freedom and peace, let me then talk about peace, but then you have to release my leaders who are in jail. You can't keep your political opponent's leaders in jail, releasing your own killers, govern the country with people who were found guilty in the past now as members of parliament and even in the Cabinet, and in the meantime you are keeping my people there. So I am saying if you are true to what you promised the people, in that case then you must have meant that the war is over." Well the war is over now, the ANC it's not necessary for them to fight any more. Now if the war is over let APLA and PAC and AWB, let them go.

POM. Say if your leaders were let go, would you hope for them to conduct talks with government regarding what are still your outstanding grievances?

ET. I will never ever in my entire life accept any other solution than the freedom and the independence of the Boer nation in their own country, where they can be governed by their own people. So that part of our ideals will go on for ever. But the point is now I cannot make any compromise with the government or even talk to you, making decisions, political decisions, while my people who must be with me to take those decisions are sitting in jail. That is my point. They must give my people amnesty, then we start again, then we can say, "Right I am really the father of the idea of an independent Boerstaat for the Afrikaner nation." In the meantime a whole lot of politicians, right wingers, have themselves on that wagon, shouting volkstaat, volkstaat, people like Constand Viljoen, even people like Hartzenberg. The fact is we worked together for a year in the Volksfront, Hartzenberg, Viljoen and myself. Viljoen made the promises that we are going to take a part of South Africa, call it UDI or what you want, a people's state, and even if it is necessary, if they are not going to listen to us to what we believe, we should just claim land for our people, then he will be there with at least 38 generals. That's what he promised. But in the meantime, later on, in the end he took his 30 generals to the polls, to the election, and not to the battlefield. So that part of the planning was totally wrecked because of Viljoen and the fact that he wasn't honest with us. In the end he became a politician instead of staying a general.

. But to come back to your question, now I am sitting in the same position. My movement is still preparing them, as I told you in the past, preparing them for a total disaster in South Africa. Now I cannot compromise myself. All I can do now, I can promise that if they bring out the leaders, the real leaders, the decision makers of my movement and the future, then they must release them the same way they did release their own people, then we can talk about peace. I cannot talk about peace now.

POM. But if they were released, what I'm asking I suppose is, do you now believe that your republic can be achieved through the use of physical force or do you accept that, like the IRA have accepted, that you have to work inside the process, you have to negotiate, that the violence will not bring it about?

ET. What I said in the past will happen. This government is heading for total economic disaster. That will bring civil war to us. The faction fighting inside the so-called government of unity is only a dream. That's a fact. The unity is a dream. Right at this stage Winnie Mandela is preparing herself with a hell of a lot of support, at least the whole of the Transkei with the APLAs and the PACs, with Bantu Holomisa and with people like Mokaba and the millions and millions of youth, members of the Youth League, the millions and millions of squatters which Mr Mandela can never supply homes for and the promises which he gave to them, homes and electricity, etc. They are not even paying, the people who are in the lucky position, the people who have houses cannot even pay their monthly rent on those houses and the electricity. The economy cannot carry on, cannot carry this burden.

. So the reason for the resistance movement which I foresaw years ago is exactly the same. One or another day, and it can happen in one year's time, maybe at least two year's time, in the wrecking of the economy. We will have civil war which the AWB will not start, but we must as a resistance movement be ready to protect ourselves and out of that chaos we have to restore law and order and you can be sure my friend, that law and order will be in our own country, a far more smaller South Africa but secure from terrorists and fears and people who are academically not in a position to rule the country.

. You know even the papers said two weeks ago that more than 64% of the women members of parliament have less than Standard 4 qualifications. It meant that they were not even for five years in school. This is a hard country, this is difficult country with all its problems, but all these possibilities, these different peoples, these different cultures. The fact that it is one of the richest countries in the world if you look to its minerals. It costs a modern nearly super government to launch this part of the world through the mire and the fire and the terror of war. They are sitting there now in the government, the people who are definitely the best reason for war and civil war and revolution in the future.

. Now I want to say again, I told you last time, I admit I thought at that time that when they take over the right wing people will not accept it and they themselves, the ANC and uMkhonto weSizwe will not be in the position to behave themselves, but it is quite clear to me now that it will take a little bit longer, but when you see me again in six or eight or nine months time I am sure we will be far nearer to those things which we talked about years ago.

POM. I just want to clarify one thing so that it is clear in my mind.

ET. You can clarify it but don't think I am going to admit any compromises with this government before they are going to hand over.

POM. I think you've answered it, but the question is: do you still retain as an option the right to resume an armed struggle against the present government?

ET. I am preparing myself in case of total chaos that we will be in even a better position than now to restore law and order and if it is necessary to defend our property and ourselves.

POM. Are you still hopeful that in fact the amnesty cut off date will be extended to 10th May?

ET. I wish could give you the tape of the SABC, the tape of that debate in parliament, they sent me a copy, it was more or less twenty minutes and forty minutes or so question time. I think that we made ourselves very clear. I think we have a just case. In the end, yes, I think that they will have no other choice than to extend the date. That is the only possible solution. I am sure that the right wing people at this stage are preparing for a hell of a fight if the government will not let all of them go.

POM. You're also talking about a conditional amnesty so that talks could begin between ...

ET. Yes. I even said that. But let me just start, don't let me go back to my people with my bare hands saying no and make a decision without speaking to the people who are involved in this. They didn't say it was, at this stage, strangely enough some of them are sending messages to me now that we must talk again, but it's over to them, but let's see.

POM. Have you ever tried to involve President Mandela himself?

ET. Not at this stage. He asked me three, four times, he invited me to speak to him but at this stage I think if he really wants to speak to me he first must create a situation in which I can speak to him. I can't go to see Mr Mandela right now if it's not the wish of some of my senior members on the executive and members who are still in jail and are involved in court cases. We asked in the first instance from him to put a moratorium and my head of negotiators sent him a long letter and Mandela answered that letter. We asked first in January for him to just put a moratorium on all the court cases. Even that can put me in the position to negotiate with my people who when I have to talk to Mr Mandela, maybe I have to take them. In the end I have to take them with my ideas or they must spell out ideas which I then can present to the president. So he said, "No", so actually I'm at a deadlock not until the cut-off date, no talks, not at all.

POM. Has your opinion of Mr Mandela changed over the last number of years, especially since he has become State President?

ET. I think he honestly is trying to create peace and prosperity but I don't think he can do it. He is still sitting with that fashion plate, his own ex-wife, and Mokaba who shouted out, "One bullet, one settler" and "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer", so they did not change. They are still what they are and they will never, and mark my words, I'm not Shakespeare I'm Terre'Blanche, but mark my words Winnie Mandela and Mokaba and Holomisa and those factions will never ever rest before they take over the government. They are going for old Mandela now, you can be sure, and they are sitting with the support of all the squatters, sitting with the support of the youth. In two years time some of those youth leaders now are in charge because it is strange that the black people when a bloke is 25, 27, they are still thinking of him as a member of the youth. You have to mature, if you are a black man, before they think about you as grown man. So she is sitting definitely with the numbers, with the figures, and in a wonderful position because the nation is hungry, winter is coming, no electricity. Old Mandela stood there two months ago, after a year he addressed his people at a squatter camp and he said, "I can bring you nothing, not one house, only my heart and my love for you." You can't eat love in the end when winter comes and you are hungry and your people are starving and there are other leaders, well known leaders, who are protesting with you, then such a situation will carry Winnie Mandela to a very strong situation and I am sure you must realise that they are all terrorists, they are used to this kind of fight and they fight.

POM. In the run-up to the elections last year the possibility, or the probability of right wing violence was very real and everyone was concerned about it, and then there was the one spate of bombings and the people didn't rise up.

ET. The reason is because of the betrayal of one man, one man. General Constand Viljoen. At a certain time he suddenly appeared on the horizon definitely quoting what the AWB did over years. He came as a general, the former head of the South African Defence Force, a real general. We tried to consolidate into the Afrikaner Volksfront with him as leader, Ferdi Hartzenberg, the leader of the Conservative Party, the official opposition at that time, immediately signed with him. They put the AWB in the position that we went with them too. Hartzenberg and Viljoen started to lay out the shadow Cabinet, they made me Minister of Law and Order, Viljoen would be then at that stage Minister of Defence, etc., and Security. There we sat planning, thinking and dreaming. But that stopped, the real ... of the AWB except the Iron Guard, whom without instructions, and I'm telling it to you, how General Viljoen will get out of it that's his story my friend, but he gave the AWB the instructions to take the cities, to protect and to run the cities if it is necessary, he and his thirty generals would take the country with the SADF commandos because he has their support. That message went out to the Iron Guard and they went in there, they went in for those few days and it was nearly a total disaster. Now they are charged with 22 murders because of the bomb explosions. So that is what happened, but Viljoen wrecked the demands and the strong arm of the right wing movement because it cancelled out the AWB as the body who really prepared in the past. All the things which we decided to do together went down the drain the moment Viljoen ran to the government, to Mandela, and registered himself as a political party.

POM. With regard to Bophuthatswana, did Lucas Mangope invite you to come in? Was Viljoen involved in that too?

ET. Yes he invited me, yes, naturally.

POM. Mangope did?

ET. Mangope. When you press that button then you can hear the bloke at the other end speak, it's like a public address, and me and at least four or five generals were in this office when I phoned Mangope and said, "President, do you have some trouble?" He said, " It is a very, very bad the situation, it is critical." So I said, "I will try my best, I think I can gather 250 men before one o'clock", I think it was eleven o'clock in the morning. I phoned him later and said, "We have more than 300, we hope we can have up to tonight 700, must I come?" Then he said yes, and the reason for that was my going. We have had an agreement a year before the election that we will support each other against the ANC and when the communists are trying to throw over one or another. Later that afternoon I phoned him and I said I'm coming and he said, "Please phone Mr Rowan Cronje", and he gave me the number. Where else could I find the number of Rowan Cronje? At that stage, well actually I don't know where he ran to because we couldn't find him, but that was his number. And Rowan Cronje was the man who then suddenly in the night appeared in the headquarters of Jack Turner, the head of Bophuthatswana Defence Force, where me and two of my Generals were sitting. He phoned and he said the AWB must please leave Bophuthatswana and Turner asked him why because the situation was very, very critical here, and he said no, General Viljoen will be there in the morning with 4000 men. And I said to General Turner, "But Viljoen can never ever, because people are not believing in him any more, he will arrive with 300 not 4000. It's quite clear to me that you really do not know the facts about this Bophuthatswana thing."

. So later on in the night I talked to Cronje and Cronje said OK we can stay but the AWB must please stop having insignia which would identify them as members of the AWB, and I said, "No, but we are here in khaki dress and some of us are in camouflage without any insignia." And he was satisfied at that stage. At four o'clock, three to four o'clock General Turner, he asked me to come and see him again. And then Cronje said I must leave Bophuthatswana, Eugene Terre'Blanche must leave Bophuthatswana and I must hand over my people, the command, to my generals but they must please not have any insignia. But as long as the people know I am there he is afraid that his army will turn against him but he brought in the meantime Col. Jan Breytenbach, the most hated white guerrilla fighter in the entire South Africa. So that was the story. The same Breytenbach who Brigadier Gqozo had kicked out of the Ciskei because of the fact that he killed during practice a few of the Ciskeians. So that was the story. The idea was to get me away from my high command and unluckily I spoke to the generals and I said how they want me to get out, "I don't want to interfere, this is a military situation, you are all trained people, all of you are people with a hell of a lot of experience, but you must decide; either we go, that's the lot of us, or I will move out and you will take the command but you will stay in radio contact with him." Well I can't tell you much more about that because I am sure that this government one or another time will come with a cry for prosecution. So part of this situation I cannot explain, we are waiting for action to come. The fact is I left the building and the men and then at eleven o'clock that morning when this Colonel Breytenbach arrived, only with 350/370 men of Constand Viljoen.

POM. Now who did they belong to?

ET. To an organisation called the Boer Crisis Aksie, the Farmers' Crisis Action, but that is one of Viljoen's babies, one of his organisations. And then you can't believe, Breytenbach addressed my generals and he told them to get out of Bophuthatswana immediately. They are a difficult situation, but you must realise at that stage Viljoen already decided to register as a political party, but Mangope not. Mangope said no he's not going to register, he's keeping his small land of Bophuthatswana as an independent state, not being part of this unitary state, and which General Viljoen is believing. I said that night to General Turner, the head of the Bophuthatswana forces, "Can you believe that the man who registers himself as a political party will help Mangope who doesn't want to be part of the unitary state? Something is wrong." And that is what happened. After I left, Breytenbach arrived and he told my people to get out, they can handle the situation and unluckily my people, disciplined as they are, they left in their bakkies and motor cars and at three different places they went into ambushes, they fought like hell against Kasspirs, armoured cars, were shot with 45mm mortar cannons and in that process a few of my people were wounded, my people took them up and the official figure in this case is that there were fifty on the side of Bophuthatswana itself and three of our people who unluckily left the convoy to put in some fuel and they found them there alone and you know what happened there. They murdered them. That is more or less as far as Bophuthatswana, there is a good book out now in Afrikaans but I think I can find you one and somebody must translate. Arthur Kemp wrote the book, it is very good. I think in time to come he will translate it into English.

POM. Some people have said across the country, because I raised last year this whole question with a lot of people, what happened here. Everyone had a different theory or was speculating or whatever, and some people said that what did you real harm in terms of the threat it posed was the scenes on television when you were leaving Bophuthatswana and it looked as though you were retreating.

ET. Yes, that's right, it looked like we ran away.

POM. That's right.

ET. I think it harmed my - well the public outside the movement. That's the reason why we wrote a book and the reason why we immediately explained to our officers what happened there but I think, let me give them credit, Mr Viljoen and all those other blokes who are part of the conspiracy, I think they harmed the AWB. Let me just say, I think to fight against a tank with hand guns and shot guns, with simple soft motor cars, to kill according to their figures fifty and lose three while you are retreating, to fight over your shoulders, I think that really was something wonderful the AWB did. But you know, this is not the first time you meet me, you know that the press and the media they fought me for many, many years and try to destroy and harm.

POM. They still are.

ET. Strangely enough but in the Afrikaans press, and even in the English press, the more realistic outlook nowadays because they are confronting the things which they did not foresee in the past. Sometimes they gave me the impression that they are more realistic. Let's hope it will last.

POM. The question I'm going to ask now, and I know it's speculative, but do you think that General Viljoen might have been part of a conspiracy on the part of the national government that he would go in there, first to bring you along with him, and then in the end betray you?

ET. Yes, well I am of that opinion. Yes I think he is part and parcel of their planning before it. I'm terribly sorry but we worked together for years, later on when we asked him to put his plans on the table he did nothing but he let other people do the things and in the end he is part of the government of the new government. Now he was supposed to oppose the government.

POM. If you had to rate the performance of this government on a scale of one to ten where one is very unsatisfactory and ten is very satisfactory, where would you place it?

ET. The government? Two.

POM. If you had to rate it's performance and one would be a very bad performance and ten would be a very good performance, five would mean an average performance.

ET. I don't think I can I can give them one point. They have for the first time the support of the entire world outside, millions and billions of dollars and British pounds and God only knows what, and up to now all they did is buy brand new Mercedes Benz motor cars, flying through the country, they did not build even one hundred houses for their own people. Unbelievable things happen like the Prime Minister of North West, Mr Molefe, who stays in hotels. My friends say the accounts go to more than R80,000 per month. Winnie Mandela herself with all her, up to now before that, for years she did it, with her own bodyguards, going to the big hotels in South Africa, throwing money around. They did not even create one single job. What is more there are more people now without jobs, far more, I should say a million or so again, you can add a million to the numbers before the election. I can give them no credit. I am sure that they are only living on the money and the promises which the people from abroad are just pumping into them and the money which they have at hand now because of the former government, that is gone, that is gone.

POM. You seem to make a distinction between Nelson Mandela and the government?

ET. No, no. What I say, no he's the leader, he's the president of the government. What I said is I really think that he is trying but I don't think he can handle it. Not with people around him like this, and most of them, unluckily, members of the South African Communist Party. And, my good friend, don't let anybody tell you that communism is dead. Communism can never be dead, as long as there is a devil in hell there will be communism in this world because that is the system worked out by the dark forces, the devil himself, to destroy the freedom of nations and to push the world into a new world order which they are creating for their own sake, a place or a new world where God will be destroyed because that is exactly what Marx said, and I said it to you last time if you remember it, he said, "My task is not to organise the worker class but to destroy God." More than 70% of the executive of the ANC are either members of the South African Communist Party or at least supporters. Mandela said last week people from abroad and people in South Africa are criticising him because of his ties with the South African Communist Party, but they are his old comrades and he will stick to them. That's his problem. If he will not stick to them he's in trouble with them. If he sticks with them the time for ... is over.

POM. What changed here in Ventersdorp in the way people live since the election both in terms of their personal lives and in terms of the community itself?

ET. Nothing. Nothing changed, except the school. Because of the lack of numbers of our primary school of white people, European people, they decided to combine the primary with the secondary school as one school and they did it and so the primary school was opened and the government took that school and gave it to the pupils of our location here, the black township. That is the only thing that changed. But the people, the farmers of the past are still boss of their farms, all the businessmen are still in their own businesses, people are buying and selling the same way. The only thing that changed was our country itself, we went through a bit of drought this year. More black people are without jobs, far more than a year ago. You saw how the squatter camp grew during this year. That is all that changed.

POM. Are the black children bussed into town from the location or do they walk in?

ET. No, they are bussed from outside the town, but from the location and the township they are walking. It's not far. It's the same as some of the white pupils walk from this end of the town to the secondary school up there.

POM. Did the community here take objection to that or did they say, well if there is no room?

ET. I think what the people are going to do as they go on is to integrate the schools because it's nonsense. Even that it's not a matter of racism. The standards, the quality of teaching went down, that is the problem. I think then they will start their own private schools as the Boer people did in the past. You must remember the Afrikaner, the Boer, is very, very sensitive about his children and schools, but even the English speaking people. That is why we have still today in South Africa, Boys High and Girls High, Afrikaans Hoer School, Afrikaans Seuns, even the English speaking and the Afrikaans speaking children are not together in the same schools and I think if I look into the navy blue eyes of yours you are a lighter colour than me, so it's not colour it's different cultures.

POM. In terms of your own political growth, how do you think your political philosophy, your political thinking has evolved in the last four years?

ET. I started the idea of the volkstaat. I moved away from apartheid and racism by making treaties with the Zulus of Inkatha, with Gqozo of the Ciskei, with Lucas Mangope, with Namibia's Rehoboth Basters. I said, and that in the end was accepted by majority of the right wing people and even left wingers now, that borders must be physical borders, a real border for the country where we can live in different states working together in a kind of a confederacy. I said you cannot with laws defend yourself and, as I said, all the right wingers in the end decided to jump on that wagon of the volkstaat, but that means borders, physical borders, independent nations for reasons of economy, etc. work together in not a federated state but a confederated state. And in the end this is realism. In the meantime as you know better than me, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and what happened? The unitary state of Soviet Russia collapsed and what happened is that small nations immediately tried to grab their independence back, shooting the hell out of each other, but the main solution in the end, as the Americans accepted, in the end was give people the right to be independent and let them live as Romanians or whatever.

. In South Africa this unitary state, as I said in the past, will collapse and we will be back to square one where the Zulu nation will uprise and take Natal or part of Natal and govern themselves. Countries like Lesotho are still there, as Basothos, as the main basis for the Sotho nation. And the Boer nation, in that chaos which will come, defending yourself, will have the opportunity to rise like the phoenix out of the ashes and the chaos which these people are busy creating right now. That is what in the last four years came realism, or more realistic, especially to the right wingers who believed in the past that they can vote themselves into the chairs of the government, defending themselves with the apartheid laws and not defending themselves with physical borders and the right to govern themselves. It is only a matter of time and I will see you again, but it is a matter of time. The things which I foresee in the last years, at that time when I met you, I thought at that time it will happen faster. It did not, but in the end it will.

. I think my time is more or less up. I've got another appointment.

POM. One last question, there are two parts to it. One part is there are going to be local elections on 1 November. Are you urging or not urging your members to register to vote or are you just boycotting the whole process? And what do you see lying locally on the path ahead? There will be local authorities, they will be equally white or black or whatever.

ET. Obviously that will give a push nearer - the people at this stage are not realising 100% or 80% that the government has changed. But this local election will show them and will hit them where it can hit the hardest and that will be money, because what will happen after this, those elections will bring into power the majority of the inhabitants of any city or town and it will be in the hands of the ANC and the South African Communist Party. To give one single inch to the new electorate to which they are making their promises right now, they then must take from the white taxpayer and distribute it amongst the millions who have nothing. So the white taxpayer will then pay for all the electricity, etc. I think it is impossible but at least they are going to pay like hell. But the blacks will not be satisfied because they cannot be satisfied because there are not enough white taxpayers who will supply the money for the necessities which will make them satisfied. It spells only one thing, my friend, disaster, chaos, and me and my movement will not be part of that chaos. I will not take part in that government because then I become part of the system and the chaos. So the wise thing is to stay out of it, to tell my people to prepare themselves for what will come and then with my movement as it was in the past, with the resistance movement, from the outside, demand certain rights, prepare to protect us against a total onslaught which is possible. I'm not in trouble. That's the wonderful part of it. I'm not in trouble, the AWB, we are not in trouble. Mr de Klerk he is in trouble. He has lost his power, his face, his house, the National Party.

. Mandela is not going to go on for much longer after the election with this unitary kind of government. I am sure they are going to change the constitution again and he will move into winner takes all and De Klerk will be kicked out as a small fraction of the opposition. He is in trouble. Mandela is in trouble. Constand Viljoen is in trouble because he can never come back to his people. I'm in trouble if I look to the task which lies ahead of me, but at least I can still look into the eyes and say I gave not one single inch, I am still standing where you found me those times. I think I am wiser. I think my people are more wise. I think I am moving into a situation where my ideals will be more acceptable. More than that I think we are moving to a situation where the only solution will be those things which I preached over the years, and there's only one way to find and to have it, is to be there and ready and better than in the past to restore law and order and to keep what is yours.

POM. When the times comes?

ET. I'm going with the tide now.

POM. When you bring your people along, because you have to do that too, do you think if you and Mr Mandela got together across a table, that between the two of you, you would be able to hammer out an accommodation that would please you and please him?

ET. I'm not a Woodstock who can see into the future, my friend. All I can say is that I can see enough as a Christian that there will be situations in which everything can change in one night and me and my people will have to ride with the tide and be ready to defend and to hold and to keep. I think Mr Mandela realises in the end that the solution is a fatherland for the Boer nation and when he wants to talk about that, then I say yes, Mr Mandela, let's talk about my fatherland.

POM. OK. Thank you ever so much for the time. Van Zyl Slabbert paid you the highest compliment he could pay anybody, he said you were the best speaking orator in Afrikaans of anybody in the country.

ET. Because I wasn't in debate with him. I don't think I worked for it. If it is so, then it's a present from me. My living, all my desires are in Jesus Christ. I am a Christian and that is why I can never lose because the real power is on my side, because I want nothing more for my own people that I am not willing to give to any other nation. I just want part of this country where my people can live and create and work and give their talents and their wisdom to the entire world. But we cannot do it now because the people who are governing do not understand the higher dreams of a small nation who are really different from any other nation, in a certain sense the cream of Europe and Britain brought together in South Africa in terrible times, fighting lions and elephants and wild animals, fought with 440 against 13,000 at the battle of Blood River, fought the British at three different times, killed with 27,000 women and children, paid with the bodies of their children in that bitter war. We want some land for those wonderful people and I am part of those people.

POM. Thank you.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.