David Duke Praises Apartheid In S. Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The host of a popular radio talk show repeatedly called him "stupid" and demanded he "shut up." But David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, defended apartheid and offered his peculiar views on race to an audience that generally seemed offended by his ideas.

For three hours, Duke extolled the "benefits" brought to Africa by Europeans to the all-race audience of Radio 702, a mostly talk station to which millions of South Africans avidly listen.

Duke said he was in South Africa at the invitation of white right-wingers opposed to the imminent transfer of power to blacks.

"I just get so tired of hearing about white oppression of black people," said Duke, a former Louisiana state legislator. One of the first things he heard after arriving, he said, was a white official who laid the problems of black South Africans on 300 years of white oppression.

"I don't look at it that way at all. I think there's been 300 years of opportunity," said Duke.

Carnage in Rwanda and deprivation elsewhere across Africa show that by comparison, black South Africans have had it pretty well "because European people came here and brought the benefits of Western Christian civilization to this land," he maintained.

"And I don't think white people have anything to be ashamed of in this country, and I am absolutely convinced that if the ANC (African National Congress) takes power in this country, that there will be a Marxist dictatorship. . . . Everybody will lose, white as well as black."

Duke described his visit as a fact-finding mission for his own New Orleans talk radio show and his publications. It was his first trip to South Africa, he said, though he said he had researched the country for 25 years.

Duke said he paid for his trip himself, which was confirmed by a spokesman for one of the groups that invited him.

At one point, program host Jon Qwelane asked Duke if he is a racist. No, replied Duke; the "real" racists, he said, are ANC leader Nelson Mandela and President F.W. de Klerk - Mandela for focusing on blacks, De Klerk for hurting white people.

While some callers clearly agreed with Duke, most did not and echoed the opinion of a man named Joey. "You are a sick person. You come to this country at a time when we don't need people like you," he said.