A recent video by Daily Maverick has highlighted the historical ties between US white supremacists and South Africa's far right. The story centres around Monica Huggett, a woman from Kempton Park who played a crucial role in forging links between the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and the Ku Klux Klan. In 2012, Huggett participated in a protest in Washington DC, where she stood alongside US white supremacists holding a banner reading "STOP WHITE GENOCIDE IN SOUTH AFRICA."
Huggett's story begins in 1980, when she was a member of the Wit Kommando, a small white terrorist group that targeted thinktanks and university academics promoting racial integration. When she and other members were arrested, police found an arsenal of weapons, including hand grenades, landmines, and rifles. Huggett turned state witness and revealed that she was a member of both the Wit Kommando and the American Ku Klux Klan, and had obtained bomb-making manuals from her American KKK contacts.
After her 1980 arrest, Huggett's activities were unclear until the 1990s, when she became a loyal soldier of Eugene Terreblanche's AWB. She was described as the only woman to have served prison time for her involvement in the AWB. Huggett recruited mercenaries to assist the AWB in violent resistance to the transition to democracy and collected them from the airport, housing them at her home until they were given their assignments.
In March 1994, Huggett's operation began to unravel after a shootout with police in which a German mercenary was killed. She was caught with a stockpile of weapons, but the amount of time she spent in prison is unclear. Shortly after South Africa's first black president entered office, Huggett moved to the US, where she settled in Louisiana and established herself as a key figure in the local white supremacist scene.
In 2011, Huggett addressed the Aryan Nations World Congress on the alleged "white genocide" in South Africa, wearing her AWB uniform. The following year, she helped launch the South Africa Project, which drew national attention to the plight of white South Africans. The project represented all five major strands of organised American white supremacy, including neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, and Christian Identity adherents.
Despite her concerns about the treatment of white South Africans, Huggett returned to Kempton Park after her American husband's death in 2012. She ran a charity called the Living Waters Foundation, which provided assistance and food parcels only to whites. Although the foundation's last Facebook post was in 2021, there are hints that Huggett, now in her mid-80s, may still be alive.
Huggett's legacy on the extreme right has endured, with her story serving as a testament to the transnational relationships between white nationalists in South Africa and the US. According to American researcher Molly Conger, who reconstructed Huggett's story for a podcast, her online comments suggest that she may still be active. Daily Maverick reached out to Huggett for an interview, but received no response.
Key points
- Monica Huggett, a woman from Kempton Park, played a key role in linking the AWB to global neo-Nazis and supporting the farm murder cause.
- Huggett's story highlights the historical ties between US white supremacists and South Africa's far right, which continue to influence current activism.
- Despite her low profile, Huggett's status on the extreme right has endured, with her charity and online comments suggesting that she may still be active.
