Church Street bombing remembered
Whites told to get their guns ready at commemoration of Church Street bombing.
Whites should get their guns ready, members of the right wing Front National were told on Wednesday at a commemoration of the 1983 Church Street bombing.
“We have to stand up and stop getting murdered. Go and get your weapons, get them licensed and let us remember the past; good and bad,” said Assistant General Manager of TAU SA, Henk van de Graaf.
He said the bombing was the beginning of a terrorist war that was continuing today in the form of farm murders.
A total of 19 people were killed on 20 May 1983 when a bomb exploded near the SA Air Force headquarters in Church Street, Pretoria, at the height of the armed struggle against apartheid.
Van der Graaf said the blood of the people who lost their lives on that day was on the hands of former African National Congress presidents Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.
Lydia van der Merwe, who witnessed the explosion, said it was a day of chaos.
“I heard a loud sound from the office and went out to see what was going on. Glass and blood was all over the street and people were shouting.”
Another witness, Andre Mostert, said the bomb went off just before he walked into the street.
“I came here to fetch a vehicle and before I got into the area I heard a huge blast. It was by pure luck that I was not involved.”
He said he still remembered the smell and sound.
Front National leader Willie Cloete said the day was important, because of its impact on South African history.
“Innocent people were killed by a bomb that shouldn’t have been planted in the first place.”
He said his party intended commemorating this day every year from now on.
Cloete said farm murders were in reality terrorist attacks — not only acts of crime.
Singer Sunette Bridges led the crowd in singing the old South African anthem Die Stem van Suid-Afrika.
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