Kommandokorps

This article is about the Afrikaner survivalist group. For the now defunct South African Commando System, see Commando System (South Africa). For the historical Boer guerilla units, see Boer Commando.
Flag of Kommandokorps.[1][2]

Kommandokorps is an Afrikaner survivalist group active in South Africa.[3] The leader is Colonel 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 modern 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]

Kommandokorps 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 group which advocates for white rights in post-apartheid South Africa and publicizes its belief that there is an ongoing genocide against whites, in particular farmers, in the country.[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]

  1. ^ Kommandokorps: Racism Breeding Camp
  2. ^ South Africa's DA wants Kommandokorps "hate camp" closed
  3. ^ a b c d "Kommandokorps denies racism". News24. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Afrikaner Blood". World Press Photo. Archived from the original on 27 July 2013. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  5. ^ a b "Inside the kommando camp that turns boys' doubts to hate". Mail & Guardian. 24 February 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  6. ^ "Kommandokorps: Should racist thought be criminalised?". Daily Maverick. 5 March 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  7. ^ "South Africa: a separate homeland for Afrikaners?". Telegraph. 10 April 2010. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  8. ^ "Controversial documentary explores South Africa's KK camps". Euronews. Archived from the original on 9 September 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2013.