An Afrikaans-speaking boer is willing to take a bullet for Julius Malema should there be an attempt on the ANC Youth League leader’s life at his “Shoot the Boer” hate-speech court appearances.
Afrikaans-speaking Adriaan Snyman is boss of the posse of gun-toting, gum-chewing heavies in funeral suits and red ties who escorted Malema into the court building on Monday morning, sowing menace and chaos along the way.
Apart from explaining that his team carried Dashprod SAR M14 rifles, Snyman refused to be interviewed about the ironies of his relationship with “Shoot the Boer”-chanting Malema this week.
But Snyman is not the only scion of “Die Volk” in the company, Tactical Security Services, contracted to guard the controversial youth leader.
The team’s armourer is a coy mlungu sporting bulging biceps and a table-top military coiffure who, in perfect Afrikaans, politely declined to state his name.
He did, however, reveal that he was the second in command and tasked to see to it that “our weapons function perfectly”.
Asked why all of them sported bright red ties, he replied: “To show we are a team.”
He also explained that his arsenal of assault rifles, banned from the courtroom by Judge Chris Lamont, was being stored in the three cars the team used to ferry Malema to court.
At the time of this conversation, the shining luxury cars – two black BMWs bracketing a black Mercedes – were parked illegally next to a one-hour parking zone sign in front of the Johannesburg High Court building, on Pritchard Street.
The fleet, with black-tinted windows, was a permanent double-parked fixture on the street throughout the week.
Their occupants were a poker-faced lot who did not respond to jokes.
Asked whether Julius treated them to a cold beer after a nerve-wracking day in court, the armourer explained that the team had absolutely no conversations with the client.
He said: “We are professional. We have to get him out of this alive.”
He did confide, however, that some of their clients, whom he said included Hollywood star Charlize Theron, were nicer than others.
Throughout the dramatic week, the team seemed to enjoy immunity from the law, not only in the street in front of the court building, but also on the highway between Sandton and Johannesburg.
Asked why they didn’t discipline the double-parked drivers of the black cars parked in front of the court, three police officers in a parked police vehicle smiled, with one saying: “We like our jobs.”
While I was stuck in the left lane of the M1 highway just before 9am on Wednesday morning, three black cars whizzed by illegally in the emergency lane, along with police cars coming from the direction of Sandton.
The last of the black cars displayed a registration plate I recognised because I made a note of the numbers of the black arsenals parked on the court’s doorstep.
The majority of the occupants of these cars are armed: five of them with lethal assault weapons and the sixth with what some boere regard as an equally lethal song.
