South African government ‘asleep’ over growing threat from far-right extremists

The South African government is under fire for allegedly underestimating the growing threat from domestic far-right groups. Dr Siphiwe Dube warns that these groups, although seen as marginal, are increasingly linked to international radical networks. A recent police operation on a training camp near Modimole highlights the potential danger, but the authorities remain tight-lipped. Dr Dube warns that the global connections of these groups cannot be ignored.

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By Linda Van Tilburg

The South African government has been accused of ignoring the growing threat from domestic far-right groups across the country, National Security News can reveal. Dr Siphiwe Dube, a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, said he believes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government may be “losing some sleep” over the threat from far-right South African groups believed to have links to other international extremist organisations.

The comments come after a police raid on a training camp for right-wing activists near Modimole in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, located on Louis Steytler’s farm. Authorities suspect the camp was providing military training. Weapons including rifles and pistols were seized. The Hawks, South Africa’s priority crime investigations directorate, has declined to discuss the investigation, saying it has been advised to proceed without media attention.

Dr Dube said that while the Ramaphosa government sees them as a “little enclave”, they overlook their links to international radical right movements.

In an interview with the BRICS Global Television Network (BGTN), Steytler, who describes himself as a self-defense and survival instructor, denied that the firearms found were illegal.

Steytler is the chairman of the South African Anglo Boer War Historical Society and a founding member of the Russophile Movement, an international pro-Russian group. In a 2023 BGTN interview, he spoke about the shared historical ties between Russians and Afrikaners.

Dr Dube suspects Steytler has links to the Suidlanders, “a prominent right-wing group here in South Africa”, whose leader, Simon Roche, has been very active in American right-wing populism. Roche toured with right-wing populists in the US during the presidency of former President Donald Trump and was central to the narrative around white genocide in South Africa, which Trump has talked about on Twitter. Roche has been a forerunner of American right-wing populism, he said.

“They’ve been around since the fall of apartheid and they’re probably not going anywhere,” Dr. Dube noted, adding that these groups are forming networks of like-minded white nationalist organizations worldwide. “They believe they’re a shrinking group and need to reassert and revitalize their identity as a white nation.”

The Suidlanders are part of this larger global network, he explained. They exploit South Africa’s high crime rates and farm murders to spread the idea that only white people are victims. “In fact, statistically, more black farm workers die than white landowners,” said Dr. Dube, who called their claims a facade of self-defense.

He contrasted this with another right-wing group, the Kommando Korps, which is “effectively waiting for a civil war,” stocking up on fuel and food and training young men in traditional African fighting styles reminiscent of the Anglo-Boer War.

Dr. Dube said there is a general perception of these groups as fringe movements that pose no real risk. However, he warns that their interconnectedness poses a threat.

What is worrying, he said, is that these groups are gaining global resonance, with similar factions in the United Kingdom, the United States and parts of Europe. “I think our government is thinking about this a little bit … but what they are forgetting, he said, is the transnational nature of the threat.”

Leaders like former President Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán support these narratives and adopt anti-immigration policies that contradict the idea of ​​a globalized world. These right-wing groups, who see migrants, black people and other “undesirables” as threats to society, find space to safely cultivate their views, he explained.

Dr Dube warned that groups like the Proud Boys in the US and the Suidlanders “are all singing the same song, and this voice is only going to get bigger and bigger.”

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This article was first published by National Security News and is republished with permission