Don Andrews
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Donald Clarke (Don) Andrews (born 1942 as Vilim Zlomislić) is a Canadian white supremacist. He is also the leader of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Party of Canada and a perennial candidate for mayor of Toronto, Ontario.[1][2]
Contents
Early years
Zlomislić was born to Croatian parents in the region of Vojvodina during World War II. His father was killed by the Nazis while fighting with the Yugoslav Partisans against the German occupation of Yugoslavia in late 1944. His mother, Rose, was shipped to Germany in 1943 to work as a slave labourer for the Nazis and Vilim was placed in an orphanage. In 1945, Rose was told that her son had been killed in an air raid. After the war, she met and married Frederick Andrews, a Canadian working for a United Nations agency in a German displaced persons' camp. The couple moved to Toronto.[3]
Vilim remained at the orphanage and was a member of the Communist Young Pioneers in post-war Communist-ruled Yugoslavia. He suffered an accident during a camping trip and a botched operation on his leg left him limping and scarred for life.[3]
His mother continued to search for him after the war through the assistance of the Red Cross which located Vilim in 1952 and brought him to Canada where he was re-united with his mother and re-Christened Donald Clarke Andrews.[3]
In Canada, Andrews developed a strong antipathy for Communism which he blamed for his physical disability. After graduating from high school he began reading far right tracts by the John Birch Society and George Lincoln Rockwell and adopted far right and ultimately fascist ideas.[3]
Education and work
Andrews was educated at R. H. King Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario[3] and subsequently took a public health inspection course at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and earned his qualifications in 1964.[4] He worked as a public health inspector in Scarborough in the 1970s.[3] More recently, he has derived his income by being a landlord.[4]
Racist activity
In the 1960s, Andrews was drawn to far right racist groups and cofounded the Edmund Burke Society with Paul Fromm and Leigh Smith in 1967. Andrews became the primary leader of the group and transformed it into the openly racist, anti-Semitic and white supremacist Western Guard in 1972. Paul Fromm split with Andrews shortly after the Western Guard was formed in 1972.
Andrews was the first person in Canada charged with wilfully promoting hatred, and in 1975 he was charged with offences ranging from plotting arson, possession of weapons and explosives, and mischief, for which he was sentenced to two years in jail. Along with the Western Guard he also plotted to bomb a visiting Israeli soccer team, although he was never charged for this.[5] Consequently, the leadership of the Western Guard fell to John Ross Taylor in 1976.[6]
Nationalist Party
Don Andrews has run for Mayor of Toronto several times, most recently in 2014, when he came in seventh place with 0.10% of the vote. In the 1974 election, Andrews placed a distant second in the mayoralty race as no serious candidate ran against popular incumbent, David Crombie. As a result, the municipal law was changed so that the runner-up in the mayoralty contest no longer had the right to succeed to the mayor's chair should the position become vacant between elections. Andrews has only run on occasions when his name appears first on the ballot. He sat out the 2000 municipal election in which fringe candidate Enza "Supermodel" Anderson was a candidate.
As of 1994, Andrews' organization had launched a campaign to celebrate "European Heritage Day," but when it was realized that the event was spearheaded by a neo-Nazi organization, the various cities approached rejected it or revoked their original decision. In 1998, Andrews tried a new tactic by attempting to get a European heritage week declared in London, Ontario. When it was recognized as a neo-Nazi attempt, an emergency vote was held by the municipal government, and the week was cancelled.[7]
Dominica invasion attempt
In what became known as Operation Red Dog, Ku Klux Klan leaders Wolfgang Droege and Don Black, as well as former Prime Minister Patrick John, conspired to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Eugenia Charles on the island of Dominica.
The invasion was meant to restore John to power and to transform the island into a white supremacist nation. John was forced to resign in 1979 after a popular uprising against his Administration.
The plan was to charter a boat to Dominica and rendezvous via rubber boats with John and his makeshift army, made up of remnants of the Dominica Defence Force. The genesis of the idea came from long-time Klan member Mike Purdue, who was introduced in 1979 to Droege through David Duke.
Duke initially involved Don Andrews but after Purdue changed the target island to Dominica, Andrews bailed out. Andrews however put Purdue in contact with Klansmen Arnie Polli and Roger Dermee who were paid US$3,000 to visit Dominica to obtain preliminary reconnaissance.
Andrews also put Purdue in contact with Charles Yanover, who was a well-known organized crime figure. Yanover who was ecstatic with the idea, provided Purdue with a $10,000 advance. In return for the investment, Yanover was given the right to set up a gunrunning operation to smuggle weapons into South Africa and Central America.[8]
See also
References
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- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "PORTRAIT OF A RACIST" by Arthur Johnson, Globe and Mail, October 1, 1979
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Facing off with hate", The Ryersonian, March 21, 2007
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Candidate beyond the fringe, eye weekly, October 30, 1997
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