By Online Team

30^th July 2012:

The mastermind of a white supremacist plot to kill Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, has been convicted of treason.  A Pretoria court ruled last week that Boeremag group leader Mike du Toit was behind the nine bombings in Johannesburg’s Soweto Township in 2002.

He is the first person to be convicted of treason in South Africa since white minority rule ended in 1994. Analysts say that although race relations in South Africa are still tense, white extremist groups like Boeremag, which means Afrikaner Power in Afrikaans, have very little support.

The Pretoria High Court handed down its verdict against Du Toit, a former academic, following a nine-year trial.  Earlier Judge Eben Jordaan said Du Toit had authored a ‘blueprint for revolution’ intended to evict black people from most of South Africa and to kill anyone who got in the way, the South African Press Association reports.

Witnesses told the court that Boeremag had carried out a spate of bombings in Soweto in 2002, killing one person.  The Boeremag had also planned to stage a coup and assassinate Mr Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison before being elected president in 1994 and acted as a unifying force after decades of white-minority rule.

The group also intended to shoot whites who opposed their vision of a racially pure nation, the witnesses said.  More than 20 other suspects were on trial with Du Toit – although they are yet to learn their fate.

Nearly 200 people gave evidence for the state – including police informants within Boeremag.  END.  Login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories mid-week for our updates

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