Right-wing resistance and violence during the transition

After the unbanning of political organisations in 1990, white far-right groups opposed negotiations that would end minority rule. The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), the Afrikaner Volksfront and associated organisations used public intimidation, armed mobilisation, attacks and bombings. Their targets included political meetings, people associated with the transition and public institutions.

Two confrontations became especially visible. In June 1993, AWB leader Eugène Terre'Blanche led up to 3,000 right-wing supporters to the World Trade Centre at Kempton Park, where constitutional negotiations were taking place; an armoured vehicle was driven through the building's glass entrance. In March 1994, hundreds of AWB members entered Bophuthatswana after President Lucas Mangope sought right-wing assistance during a civil-service strike and political crisis. The force attacked residents in Mafikeng, and the intervention collapsed after fighting with the Bophuthatswana security forces and the deployment of the South African Defence Force.

Right-wing groups also carried out a bombing campaign in the period immediately before the April 1994 election. These attacks were part of a broader attempt to disrupt the transition through fear, armed force and political sabotage, but they did not prevent the election or reverse the transfer to democratic government.

Significance

Right-wing violence became a direct threat to the negotiations and the 1994 election. Its failure to stop the transition, especially after the collapse of the Bophuthatswana intervention, marked the defeat of open armed resistance to majority rule.