Founder of US white supremacist group dead

WASHINGTON – Richard Butler, the founder of the Aryan Nations, one of the leading US white supremacist groups, died in his sleep last week at the home of a supporter in the northwestern state of Idaho.

He was 86. Butler, an open admirer of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, preached a message that combined Nazi ideology with a racist interpretation of Christianity.Butler — who preached ‘Christian Identity’, which holds that people of northern European ancestry are the true Israelites, or God’s chosen people — hoped to establish a separate white-only region in the remote hills of northern Idaho.Jews were the children of Satan and blacks were “mud people”, according to his thinking.He also opposed whites blood being “diluted” when they married members of other races.Members or former members of Butler’s group were convicted of numerous violent crimes across the United States, including assassination, armed robberies, bombings, counterfeits and racial assaults.For more than three decades Butler’s eight hectare (20-acre) compound near Hayden Lake, Idaho, hosted an annual event called the Aryan Nations Congresses, which brought together white supremacists, skinheads, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and others.Butler was born in Colorado, and grew up in Los Angeles, where he studied aeronautical engineering.- Nampa-AFPButler, an open admirer of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, preached a message that combined Nazi ideology with a racist interpretation of Christianity.Butler — who preached ‘Christian Identity’, which holds that people of northern European ancestry are the true Israelites, or God’s chosen people — hoped to establish a separate white-only region in the remote hills of northern Idaho.Jews were the children of Satan and blacks were “mud people”, according to his thinking.He also opposed whites blood being “diluted” when they married members of other races.Members or former members of Butler’s group were convicted of numerous violent crimes across the United States, including assassination, armed robberies, bombings, counterfeits and racial assaults.For more than three decades Butler’s eight hectare (20-acre) compound near Hayden Lake, Idaho, hosted an annual event called the Aryan Nations Congresses, which brought together white supremacists, skinheads, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and others.Butler was born in Colorado, and grew up in Los Angeles, where he studied aeronautical engineering.- Nampa-AFP