Kommandokorps

Flag of Kommandokorps.[1][2]

Kommandokorps is an Afrikaner survivalist group active in South Africa.[3] The leader is Franz Jooste, who served with the South African Defence Force during the apartheid era.[4]

The group organises paramilitary camps, which are attended by youths between the ages of 13 and 19.[3] The teenagers are taught self-defence and how to combat a perceived black enemy.[4] Following an infantry-style curriculum, they are lectured on racial differences, such as a claim that black people had a smaller cerebral cortex than whites, and are made to use a South African flag as a doormat.[3] The camp is located in the veld outside the town of Carolina, Mpumalanga, about 230 km east of Johannesburg.[5]

The group has been criticised by the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum.[3] The Democratic Alliance called for the group to be closed, and its activities investigated by the Human Rights Commission.[6] A group of Kommandokorps volunteers attended the funeral of the former Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leader Eugene Terreblanche.[7] In 2011, the group signed a saamstaanverdrag (unity pact) with the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and the Suidlanders, a large whites-only group.[5]

“Fatherland” is a full-length documentary produced and directed by Tarryn Lee Crossman that explores the experiences of young men in the Kommandokorps camps.[8]

See also

References

  1. Kommandokorps: Racism Breeding Camp
  2. South Africa's DA wants Kommandokorps "hate camp" closed
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Kommandokorps denies racism". News24. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  4. 4.0 4.1 "Afrikaner Blood". World Press Photo. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  5. 5.0 5.1 "Inside the kommando camp that turns boys' doubts to hate". Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  6. "Kommandokorps: Should racist thought be criminalised?". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  7. "South Africa: a separate homeland for Afrikaners?". Telegraph. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  8. "Controversial documentary explores South Africa’s KK camps". Euronews. Retrieved 8 December 2013.

External links