Rejecting Free Vote, White S. Africans Lay Claim to 2 Towns
Armed white right-wing demonstrators driving in convoys laid claim to two towns Tuesday to dramatize their bid for a separate homeland and their rejection of the country’s first free elections.
Just hours after the government and the African National Congress said they had met most demands of white conservatives planning to boycott the elections, the armed protesters drove through Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State and Newcastle in northern Natal to bolster their demands for the towns as part of a future Afrikaner homeland.
A group of right-wing whites has vowed to go to war to establish a homeland rather than fall under the rule of a black majority government, which is widely expected to win the elections, set for April 26-28.
The extremists say taking part in the elections would legitimize a flawed constitution.
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