The leader of the extreme right in South Africa, Eugene Terre’Blanche (69), has been murdered.

Police report that he was beaten to death on his farm in the north-east of the country. It is thought he was killed because of a row about the payment of two farm workers. The two, a 21-year-old and a 15-year-old, have been arrested.

President Jacob Zuma has called for calm. He said the murder must not be allowed to fan racial hatred.
White farmers’ organisations have also called for restraint, fearing the situation in South Africa could get out of hand.

Terre’Blanche was the leader of the Afrikaans Resistance Movement (Afrikaans Weerstandsbeweging). In the 1990s the party threatened to unleash a civil war using terrorist attacks in order to prevent the abolition of apartheid. Terre’Blanche also wanted a separate homeland for whites. He spent three years in prison for attempting to kill a black person.

Members of his party say he was beaten with sticks, metal pipes and machetes.