Britain's Queen Elizabeth, in South Africa for the Heads of Government meeting of the Commonwealth, faced demands yesterday that Britain apologise to the Afrikaner people for its treatment of their Boer forebears during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.
The demands emanated primarily from Mr Jaap Marais, the veteran Afrikaner nationalist and leader of Herstige Nasionale Party, an offshoot of the once dominant National Party. Mr Marais was supported by Mr Constand Viljoen, a former Chief of the South African Defence Force and leader of the Afrikaner-dominated Freedom Front.
In a letter to Queen Elizabeth, parts of which were published on the front page of the Citizen yesterday, Mr Marais pointedly noted that the British monarch was a signatory to a law in which the British crown expressed its "profound regret" to the Maori Waikatu tribe for the "loss of lives" and the "destruction of property" which they suffered during the British "invasion" of their territory in 1945.
But, Mr Marais told the queen, no similar apology had been made to the Afrikaner people for the death of Boers and the destruction of their property during the British invasion of the Boer Republics. The mortalities suffered by the Boers included the death of 26,500 Boer women and children in British concentration camps.
Mr Marais approvingly quoted the British opposition leader at the time of war, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, on the camps. He characterised the use of concentration camps to intern and subdue the Boers as "methods of barbarism". Later, according to Mr Marais, a British professor used a different but equally condemnatory label: ethnic cleansing.
The immediate background to the publication of Mr Marais's letter to the queen was a leaked report that the monarch would express "regret" at the loss of life on all sides in the Anglo-Boer War. Mr Marais demanded to know how Britain could reconcile its refusal to apologise for the suffering inflicted on the Boers when it had apologised to the Maoris for violating their territory, to the Irish for the Famine and to the Americans for the Boston Tea Party.
Mr Marais urged Afrikaner nationalists to make their feelings known by waving the Vierkleur flag of the Boer Republic, headed by Paul Kruger, during Queen Elizabeth's visit.
Gen Viljoen identified his main objection to Britain's actions during the Anglo-Boer War as the "herding" of Boer women and children into concentration camps by the British army commander, Lord Kitchener.
Queen Elizabeth expressed sadness at the loss of life in the Anglo-Boer War at a state banquet in South Africa last night, but stopped short of the full apology demanded. "It is fitting that we should remember that tragic chapter in the history of both our countries," she said. "We should remember with sadness the loss of life and suffering not only of British or Boer soldiers but of all those caught up in the war - black and white, men, women and children."