- Jaap Marais
Jaap Marais (
1923 -8 August ,2000 ) was an attorney, an Afrikaner nationalist and the leader of the far-rightSouth African political party, theHerstigte Nasionale Party HNP , from 1977.The party (HNP) was formed in 1969 by Dr. Albert Hertzog (son of former Prime Minister General JBM Hertzog) and Jaap Marais (then both cabinet ministers of the ruling National Party, two years after the assassination of Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, when his successor B.J. Vorster was eroding the policies of Apartheid.Fact|date=July 2008
Jaap Marais was thrown out of the Broederbond shortly after the HNP was formed, and later all other identified HNP members or sympathizers were also purged from the Broederbond.Fact|date=July 2008
Under Jaap Marais' leadership, the party challenged the negotiating policies of the National Party. He tried in vain to obtain the co-operation of the Conservative Party under Andries Treurnicht.Fact|date=July 2008 He proposed a Volksfront, being a coalition of all the right wing organizations with one objective only, to stop De Klerk on his path to handing over the reins of government to the ANC. Instead, in 1991, a Volksfront was created from the ranks of the Conservative Party, and led by Constand Viljoen. This organization spoke at first for the Afrikaans right wing, but in the end it registered to participate in the multi-racial elections of 1994. Under Jaap Marais, the HNP campaigned vigorously to persuade whites to boycott these multi-racial elections.
The Conservative Party ceased to exist shortly after the ANC won the election and the AWB disintegrated, but the HNP continues to this day.
The party does not recognise the new government in South Africa, and has not relinquished its claim to South Africa. It continues to encourage its supporters not to vote, as part of its policy of resistance.
Jaap Marais died on Tuesday, August 8th, 2000, and was succeeded as leader by Willie Marais. Willie Marais died in December 2007, and a new leader has not yet been elected.
Jaap Marais claimed that it was the British and not the National Party of 1948 who had invented apartheid. "Is it asking too much of English-speaking South Africans to acknowledge this evident truth?" the 77-year-old Marais, who up to his death held to Verwoerdian apartheid ideology, wrote in the "Sunday Independent."
Marais also demanded an apology from Tony Blair for Britain's conduct during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, when it had instituted concentration camps in which 27,000 Boer civilians perished (24,000 children + 3,000 women). Blair refused to do so.
Marais was a productive writer and translated
William Shakespeare 's Julius Caeser intoAfrikaans . He was an avid ornitholigist and bred birds.External links
* [http://www.dispatch.co.za/2000/08/10/southafrica/MARAIS.HTM "Jaap Marais remembered as "one of Bittereinders"] - "Dispatch Online". Last visited 27 December 2007.
External links
* [http://www.dispatch.co.za/2000/08/10/southafrica/MARAIS.HTM "Jaap Marais remembered as "one of Bittereinders"] - "Dispatch Online". Last visited 27 December 2007.
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