Zuma urges calm after far-right leader killed

Ventersdorp, South Africa: South African President Jacob Zuma called for calm yesterday after the killing of white far-right leader Eugene Terre'Blanche in a suspected pay dispute with black workers.

Police detained two farm workers and said they were investigating the quarrel they had with Terre'Blanche, but his Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) says he was battered and hacked to death in an attack with political overtones.

Zuma, who has made it a priority to court white Afrikaners, called it a "terrible deed" and urged South Africans "not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fuelling racial hatred".

Hardliner

Terre'Blanche, 69, was the voice of hardline opposition to the end of apartheid in the 1990s although his party has played a marginal role since then and does not have a big following among white South Africans.

The AWB urged restraint while the funeral is prepared and before the party decides next steps. In Ventersdorp, in rolling farmland 100km west of Johannesburg, party followers in paramilitary khaki laid flowers at the farm gate.

"We will decide upon the action we are going to take to avenge Terre'Blanche's death," said spokesman Andre Visagie.