Police had to separate black and white groups with razor wire as tension mounted outside the Ventersdorp Magistrate's Court on Tuesday ahead of the appearance of two people expected to be charged with the murder of AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche.

This was after a group of white people hit and pushed a group of black people outside the court after they sang the old and new national anthems at each other ahead of the appearance of the two farm workers accused of murdering Terre'Blanche on Saturday.

Police wedged themselves into the middle of the group to separate them and then pushed the black group away and began erecting razor wire to separate them.

The fracas began when the white supporters of Terre'Blanche started singing "Die Stem", South Africa's apartheid era anthem, and the black observers outside the court in return sang the old version of Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika.

The physical confrontation was believed to have started when a white woman sprayed the instant drink Kool Aid at one of the black people singing.

Themba Mbatha, from Ekurhuleni, who had been the target, said: "We are not here to fight and the worst thing that they did now is to separate us with barbed wire."

He said they came in solidarity with farm workers, because they understood their battles.

Terre'Blanche headed the far right wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) organisation, and his death was being linked to ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema's singing of the song "Shoot the boer".

As the police were unrolling the razor wire from their armoured vehicle, they drove into a ditch and got stuck, setting off the singing of the Afrikaner folk song "o, help 'n bietjie daar" (lend a hand), with some of the white people shouting, "find a boer and a tractor" and laughing at the police as they struggled to complete their task of separating the two races.

The white group then sang "Bobbejaan klim die berg" (the baboon climbs the mountain), before a farmer appealed for calm.