SUSPICIOUS RIOTING IN SOUTH AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 111, 4 February 1941, Page 6

SUSPICIOUS RIOTING IN SOUTH AFRICA

There is more than a suspicion of Nazi intrigue in the Johannesburg rioting which was referred to in a brief cablegram published yesterday. According to the report the trouble arose from a clash between loyalists and members of a movement styled the Ossewa Brandwag. Political differences in South Africa have encouraged the formation of various sectional groups with conflicting objectives. This situation plays into the hands of enemy intriguers attempting to foment internal disorders, especially where a faction exists whose structure and aims have a totalitarian basis which lends itself to skilful exploitation by unscrupulous agents. Such is the Ossewa Brandwag ( Sentinels of the Ox Wagon”).

This is a quasi-military organization built up under the leadership of Colonel Laas, until recently an officer of the South African Defence Forces. Some interesting data concerning it appeared recently in an article contributed to the London Spectator by the editoi of the Natal Witness, Mr. C. H. Calpin. One of the characteristics of the great treks of early South African times was strong leadeiship, power and authority being centralized in a single individual in a manner recalling the Israelites under Moses, and having its modern countei - part, on an enlarged scale, in the totalitarian countries of Euiope. The South African celebrations of 1938 commemorating the Great Trek- left in .their wake a sectional sentiment that was capitalized in the Ossewa Brandwag, and given a modern orientation. Its activities have become suspiciously subversive, leading to a strong agitation for its suppression. According to one of their adjutants-general the membership on the Rand alone totals some 60,000, all sworn to military obedience to the leader, and to economic allegiance to certain tradeis to be set up in business. The movement, of course, is Republican, and anti-British.

Mr. Calpin’s article appeared some months ago. I he. occurrence of this clash at Johannesburg would suggest that its capacity for stirring up strife may have become considerably augmented since then. The incident is a warning to other Dominions to beware of internal elements seeking to undermine their war efforts by working through sectional bodies. New Zealand has already had some experience of this in the activities of such elements as the Communists, and in the anti-war propaganda of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other so-called religious bodies.