The Long Struggle For Self Determination.

The Boers have had a long struggle to acquire self determination. A struggle which dates back to 1795 on the eastern Cape frontier when the first Boer Republics at Swellendam & Graaff-Reinet were established in rebellion to Dutch rule. The Boers would later achieve a high level of self determination after the Great Trek when numerous other Boer Republics were founded north of the Orange River. The main republics were the Transvaal Republic also known as the ZAR / the Vryheid Republic & the Orange Free State Republic. When the two major republics of the ZAR & the OVS were conquered by the British after the second Anglo-Boer War -the struggle for self determination resumed first during the Maritz Rebellion in 1914 which was triggered when the South African government sided with the British less than 15 years after the devastation of the British concentration camps which killed close to 50 % of the Boer child population. The Rebellion leaders were jailed & prevented from participating in politics. The movement to restore the Boer Republics resumed again during the 1940s but was crushed by the Afrikaner establishment & the government. Then in 1961 Robert van Tonder left the National Party to pursue the restoration of the Boer Republics full time. Later still during the 1970s this movement began to grow but was later curtailed again as well. The movement to restore the Boer Republics or to acquire some form of Boer self determination continues but is still facing strong obstacles & is often not represented in a fair nor accurate manner in the West.