TIMES ONLINE: Thousands of followers of Eugene Terre’Blanche, the murdered white supremacist, attended his funeral amid tight security today.
Mourners, many dressed in combat gear, sang the apartheid-era national anthem as the coffin entered the church. Some among the congregation performed Nazi salutes during the service.
Other who could not fit inside the church filled the streets of the small farming town of Ventersdorp, 62 miles (100km) west of Johannesburg.
South Africa’s pre-apartheid flag and Terre'Blanche's party's flag, which resembles the Nazi swastika, fluttered from pickup trucks in the surrounding streets.
Reverend Ferdie Devenir told the congregation that Mr Terre’Blanche had been “a good leader”.
“The world was against him, they looked for the bad things about him.”
Two of Mr Terre’Blanche’s black workers have been charged with beating and hacking him to death on his farm last Saturday.
Police suspect the murder was financially rather than politically motivated but the killing has exposed the country's persistent racial divide 16 years after the end of white minority rule.
Helicopters circled above the streets and police were out in force. Few black South Africans were among the crowds. >>> Joanna Sugden | Friday, April 09, 2010
