Black and white South Africans scuffled in heated confrontations reminiscent of racial apartheid this Tuesday as two males farm workers aged 28 and 15 were being charged with the murder of AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche.

Police erected a barbed wire barricade between the two groups after they faced off, traded insults, and sang rival anthems outside the heavily guarded magistrates court in Ventersdorp, North-West province.

The two farm workers were formally charged with murder, housebreaking with intent to rob, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances as they exposed the victim’s private parts”.

Hundreds of white farmers and supporters of Terre’Blanche’s far-right Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) movement had gathered to protest over his killing last weekend. Some were waving the apartheid-era national flag and refusing to speak to black journalists.

National anthem pre-dating the dawn of multiracial democracy in 1994 and Zulu choruses from the new national anthem could be heard sung by the two rival groups.

Around 200 police officers formed a human wall between the two groups and erected coils of razor wire to keep them apart.

“We are celebrating the death of the man who has abused us so much,” told Brenda Abrams, a 30-year-old black businesswoman who was at the courthouse, adding a “big fuss” was being made about Terre’Blanche’s death,”but nobody says anything when black farm workers are killed.”

The AWB has blamed the murder on Julius Malema, leader of the youth wing of the African National Congress, after he insisted on singing an apartheid-era protest song containing the words, “Shoot the Boer”. But yesterday , the group withdrew its threat of violent revenge.

Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, demanded an urgent meeting with president Zuma and called on him to rein in Malema.

The AWB claims to have had at least 3,000 membership applications since the murder.