Volkstaat

Future of Orania may be obscured by Karoo dust

2008-05-11T20:27:00.003+02:00

From this article it would seem that Orania is not yet the success that was hoped for.

The volkstaat halfway between Hopetown and Petrusville on the R369 in the Northern Cape, cannot be called a success by any stretch of the imagination
As an experiment in social engineering Orania, the volkstaat halfway between Hopetown and Petrusville on the R369 in the Northern Cape, cannot be called a success by any stretch of the imagination.
When the village celebrated its 10th anniversary in April 2004, the population was a little more than 1 000. Today, the total population is 618, with the normal dispersion of children, adults and elderly people.
Ornate and open concrete gates welcome visitors. Orania‘s flag flutters lightly in the breeze. The flag is in the former South African colours of orange, white and blue.
Superimposed is a figure of a boy rolling up his sleeves in white. The white figure overlaps the blue and orange.
Situated in the harsh Karoo scrubland on the dusty banks of the Orange River, Orania is the last outpost of Afrikanerdom.
As the midday sun sends out its blistering rays, it is unimaginable that anyone would choose to live there – however strong their beliefs.
Before the first democratic elections, die-hard Afrikaners – claiming their culture and history would be swallowed up in the new democratic state of South Africa – demanded their own white state.
The new ANC government found a loophole in the constitution and graciously conceded to their demands.
As we drive along the well-kept paved road, we see a large head-and-shoulders bronze statue of former prime minister HF Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, festooned in flowers.
Of residents there is little sign. There is an emptiness that is quite surreal, although publicity spokesman Lida Strydom assures us that it is a “flourishing little town”.
Our targets are the Koeksister Monument honouring not just the modern women, but those of yesteryear who bore the trials and tribulations of lonely, primitive farms, the Great Trek and the two Boer Wars.
The 2m-high monument was unveiled in 2003 by koeksister expert Anna Boshoff, daughter of Verwoerd.
The brainchild of Orania‘s Kaalvoet Women‘s Organisation, it was named after Voortrekker Susanna Smit who said she would rather walk barefoot over the Drakensberg than suffer under British rule.
The other is the assembly of monuments on a koppie overlooking the town. On plinths are head and shoulders of former Afrikaner presidents and prime ministers including Paul Kruger. In front of the curved display is the little boy in the same pose as on the flag.
“Orania was developed after Pretoria-based Professor Carel Boshoff and other supporters realised that the Afrikaner was becoming a suppressed minority group and losing its unique way of life,” said Strydom.
“We needed land where we could be self-reliant. Our focus is on developing and retaining our own unique culture, but at the same time we are also keen to help other minority groups to rebuild and practise theirs.
“One of the cornerstones of Orania is ‘selfwerksaamheid‘, meaning that as a group we are able to do everything ourselves. We do not exploit other cultures to do our dirty work, but at the same time we are a sustainable community,” she said.
“The dream is slowly becoming a reality. Although not many people settled in Orania, we have a lot of supporters worldwide and more and more people are becoming interested in the idea of Orania as the solution to many problems.”
Orania was originally a camp for water affairs department labourers during the construction of the Vanderkloofdam – a vital link in the giant Orange River irrigation scheme.
“The department built the village from scratch using pre-fab housing on large plots framed by broad pavements.
A multi-purpose community hall, a large swimming pool, tennis courts and a squash court provided adequate sporting facilities.
Part of Orania‘s development included a post office, a guest house, a clinic and a shop. Later a church and a school were added.”
But when the work had been completed, the village slowly deteriorated.
In 1990 the former government decided to sell what remained of the village as a single entity. Members of Afstig (the Afrikaner Freedom Movement) saw the advertisement in Landbouweekblad and decided to tender.
They collected a group of shareholders and not long afterwards Orania was bought by the newly developed Orania Bestuursdienste for R1,5-million.
Developing the volkstaat began in April 1991 and houses were offered for sale at prices between R31 000 and R41 000.
In August 1991 the neighbouring farm Vluytjekraal 272 (approximately 2 300ha) was bought for a further R480 000, thus providing agricultural development.
The town council came into being and took over the management of the village, with the first mayor being Andre van den Berg.
An upbeat Strydom said: “The community has come alive again. There are now two schools with pupils from Grade 0 to matric.” Residents were employed internally “like any normal town” and a few worked outside the village.
“Our community lifestyle is very important. We support local business. We mostly have small businesses, where a few people are employed, but there are quite a lot of them – goldsmiths, farmers, teachers and technical workers.
“The basis of our strategy in Orania is the assumption that if ethnic minorities (such as ourselves here in South Africa) do not have some protected spaces, our culture and way of life will be unable to survive the pressures of globalisation, hostile governments and integration.
“It has become the responsibility of every group to preserve their own unique culture. The Afrikaners of Orania believe in the right to self-determination for all people irrespective of race, culture or creed.”
Of significance is that Orania has its own currency – the ora introduced in April 2004.
The currency, sponsored by a local optometrist – acts like a coupon system and according to Strysom has been very successful in stimulating the circulation of money and Orania‘s local economy.
“The profit from the first series was used to help sponsor broadband internet for the community,” she said.
“Another positive fact about Orania is our ecological conscience. We realise the importance of the ecology and aim to eventually produce at least 50% of our own food locally.
"We are one of few municipalities that separate our garbage at source in order to recycle.”
“Orania functions like any normal town, except for the fact that we have a common dream, and we live that dream,” she said.
From a ghost town to a dream is the story of this tiny boerestaat, but with dwindling numbers, for how long?

Nothing Ever Happens in Afrikaner Heaven

2007-07-14T00:15:00.000+02:00

Some unkind words from the people at Time Inc.

The anniversary solemnly marked on a rocky hilltop last week by the residents of Orania is not observed by many South Africans. Bittereinderdag (Bitter-ender Day) commemorates those among the Boers who refused to abide by the peace agreement concluded by their leaders more than a century ago, and fought to the bitter end against the advancing British Empire. But the townsfolk of Orania, a privately owned community populated by some 600 white Afrikaners who, like their forebears, never accepted the peace deal made by their own leaders that brought black majority rule to South Africa, use the day to rededicate themselves to the fading ideal of a separate Afrikaner nation state.
During the transition from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s, Orania's founding fathers envisaged the town as the center of a new Volkstaat (People's State) that would emerge as a refuge for the country's 2.5 million Afrikaners who were expected to flee the post-apartheid society. And although only 600 Afrikaners followed them, they remain undeterred.
"South Africa is now the youngest black republic in Africa. That leaves the Afrikaner feeling uneasy," says Carel Boshoff, a white-haired former theology professor who has lived here since 1992. "As we experience more and more the marginalization of the Afrikaner in language, in public life, in institutions, the need for an Afrikaner region is growing."
Many Afrikaners are certainly feeling uneasy. Poverty and unemployment are on the rise, and rampant violent crime has increased feelings of insecurity. As towns and streets once named in honor of Afrikaner heroes are steadily renamed, the huge success of a folk song celebrating Boer War general Koos De La Rey signaled a hunger for a return to Afrikaner pride.
Boshoff had once hoped that his vision of a self-sufficient Afrikaner homeland would draw 60,000 people to Orania. But after 13 years of black rule in South Africa, Afrikaner separatism remains a quirky fringe movement. Orania flies its own flag, and prints its own currency, the Ora. A large monument to the koeksister— sticky donut renowned as an Afrikaans delicacy — stands near the town swimming pool. But for all but a few stalwarts, the dream of the Volkstaat has quietly faded away. City dwellers regard Orania with a mixture of bemusement and scorn. Most recently, the town drew headlines when a man announced plans to open a whites-only nudist colony here — a plan the Oranians say they will reject.
"People tend to define us in terms of the old apartheid, but we're way past that," says John Strydom, another longtime Orania resident. "People like to call us racists, and if you look hard enough you'll find a racist or two here. But there are racists in Cape Town as well."
The differences between Oranians and the Afrikaners of the apartheid era, says Strydom, is that his community have shunned the reliance on low-paid black labor upon which apartheid was built. "We're a new breed of Afrikaners, because we do our own work," he says. Here, the garbage is collected and the houses of the wealthy are kept clean by poorer white people. "Our motto is self-sufficiency," says Strydom. "If you can't do something yourself, you go to someone within the community first. Then you look for someone within your own culture."
On the morning of Bittereinderdag, new bronze busts of Hendrik Verwoerd (the notorious architect of apartheid) and other Afrikaner icons are unveiled before an audience of 60 people. Some sport koeksister T-shirts; others wear orange, white and blue, the colors of the Boer Republic defeated by the British. Among the busts stands a statue depicting a boy rolling up his sleeves to get down to work. The same logo adorns the flag and the orange and blue baseball caps popular among residents.
Leaving the ceremony, Odel and Rene, two teenage girls, say they are glad to live in Orania, because here the Afrikaans language and culture is protected. "Many of the schools of the Afrikaans people have closed," says Odel. "They want to have Kaffirkaans, not Afrikaans."
"Kaffir" is an old Afrikaans racial epithet for black people, derived from the Arabic term for "infidel." But when asked if she refers to the term whose use is now banned under legal penalty in South Africa, she just giggles.
Still, both girls say they plan to move away from Orania when they grow up. "Sometimes it's just too quiet here," says Rene.

Afrikaner faces identity crisis: Orania leader

2007-07-13T22:21:00.001+02:00

Carel Boshoff, the leader of the self-proclaimed Volkstaat Orania in the Northern Cape, says the Afrikaner community is facing an identity crisis. Boshoff was speaking at Orania's Monument Hill, which has been designed to accommodate statues of Afrikaner leaders from the past government. Some of the figures have been removed from prominent places in the country. Boshoff says the Afrikaner community is struggling with its sense of belonging. "I heard 1 million people have already left the country and half of them would be Afrikaners, so we may have a losing future if we cannot keep our people in this country and create a future for ourselves, so the question for the future of the Afrikaner is a very sincere one," he said.

The real deal

2007-04-13T23:34:00.000+02:00

Here is a map of the two Boer Republics before the Anglo Boer War.

Interview With Freedom Front General-Secretary Col. Piet Uys

2007-04-11T14:34:00.000+02:00

Afrikaner Independence (1): Interview With Freedom Front General-Secretary Col. Piet Uys David Storobin, Esq. - 5/24/2005

In late 1992, South Africa's Conservative Party, together with other white right wing organizations and three Black Homeland leaders (Mangosuthu Buthelezi of KwaZulu, Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana and Oupa Gqozo of Ciskei) founded COSAG, the Concerned South African Group, which promoted the idea of a confederacy on ethnic/tribal basis. In May of the following year, CP and 20 other organizations organized the AVF, Afrikaner People's Front, which merged together with COSAG in July 1993 under the name Freedom Alliance. [Afrikaners are South Africans who lived in the country for several hundred years, and were originally of Dutch, German, French and other West European descent, but have since developed into their own separate ethnic group.]

The head of AVF was General Constand Viljoen, the former leader of the South African Defense Force. Several dozen other generals joined the organization. Within months, the AVF claimed the support of 100,000 out of 150,000 South African commandos, as well as much of the police, while the army remained on the side of the then-governing National Party.

As rumors of Civil War spread, the AVF began preparing for a potential military conflict, in part to protect themselves and in part to achieve Afrikaner sovereignty on at least part of South African land (probably Transvaal and Orange Free State).

Shortly before RSA's first non-racial elections, the government of the Bophuthatswana asked for help from the AVF, but along with Gen. Viljoen's force, extremists from the AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) showed up and began firing on what were supposed to be the Whites' allies among Blacks. Since its founding in the early 1970's, AWB repeatedly was charged with being covert instigators and saboteurs for the then-governing National Party against conservative opposition, created by the NP to embarass the right wing.

As a result of AWB actions, cooperation between Black homeland leaders and conservative Afrikaners was scaled down. As a result, Gen. Viljoen decided not to engage in any resistance, instead choosing to participate in the political process under the new party banner Freedom Front (www.vryheidsfront.co.za/index.asp?l=e). As part of FF's negotiations with the ANC, a clause regarding negotiations on Afrikaner self-determination became part of the RSA's Constitution and government-sponsored Volkstaat Council was formed discuss the idea. It was disbanded in 1999, with no response to any of the Council's recommendations.

The Conservative Party - and other right wingers, including the Reformed National Party (splinter group from the governing NP) - at the time condemned FF's decision to join the political process. In 2003, however, the CP joined Freedom Front and they are now operating under the name Freedom Front Plus.

FF+ currently has 4 seats out of 400 in the South African parliament. In 1999, it had 3 seats and in 1994 it had 9 seats. In 2001, Gen. Viljoen retired and was replaced by Pieter Mulder as the head of FF+.

Today, we are interviewing Col. Piet Uys, the Secretary-General of Freedom Front since 1994, on the current goals and actions of the Freedom Front Plus. Prior to joining the FF, he served in the South African Army for 26 years, retiring with the rank of Colonel.

Q: What is FF+ doing currently to achieve independence or autonomy for Afrikaners?

A: Firstly, we are building the party in terms of organisation and members. The party is slowly becoming the only party in the country, and the world, who speaks on behalf of all the Afrikaners in the world. Our experience has shown that the present government reacts to pressure, and only the strong can exert pressure. We, therefore, participate in every municipal election where we have support, to enable our supporters to cast their votes in our favour. We have seen a steady indicator of growing support.

Secondly, we propagate minority rights and self-determination for all cultural groups as a prerequisite for a prosperous and happy country. This we do, not only for the Afrikaner people, but for al those other ethnic and cultural groups in the country who are starting to feel marginalised or threatened by the majority in the country.

We claim all the rights provided for in the United Nation's 1992 Declaration of the Rights of Minorities.

During the negotiation phase between the previous government and the ANC, in 1992/93, the Afrikaner people managed to arrange an Accord amongst the ANC, the National Party (then the governing party), and the Freedom Front. It was signed on 23 April 1993, and it still stands! This Accord, amongst others, makes provision for a territorial component in the self-determination we seek.

Following this Accord, the party will soon commence talks with the Thabo Mbeki administration, in order to remind them of the contents of the Accord, and that we want the governments answers on these issues.

Q: Would you be satisfied with autonomy in the short-term?

A: We will be satisfied with a system of autonomy that provides for the following :

1. Free and open access to employment - at the moment we suffer under the regulations of Affirmative Action, which effectively prevent young Whites from entering the jobs-market.

2. Control and management of our own Department of Education, and access for our childern to schools teaching in our own language.

3. The preservation of at least two universities where teaching in our language will be allowed.

4. The guarantee that the principle of the rights to private property will be safe.

5. The ability to train, at the university, Afrikaans speaking teachers, who will not only study in our language, but who will also be able to teach that language as a subject.

6. The freedom to run our own local affairs via our own municipalities, where Afrikaners are concentrated in significant numbers. (We have lost all our municipalities, except one - Orania.)

7. The freedom to establish our own Afrikaner Council, who will be our own Representative Body.

8. The freedom to arrange our own cultural affairs, like own TV, own Radio, etc.

Q: Would the ANC potentially agree to autonomy?

A: Yes, if it is to their benefit. They will be surprised at the large amount of goodwill that will be generated when Afrikaners regain autonomy!

Q: The idea of Afrikaner self-determination has been attacked as racist and unfair to Blacks. Is FF+ respected in the RSA or is it considered a marginal, extremist organization?

A: The Freedsom Front Plus is well respected in the country because we honestly state our case. Many do not agree with us, but still respect us because they know where they stand with us. We believe in the rights of minorities and in self-determination, not only for the Afrikaners, bur for all the groups in the country.

Q: Following the demise of the National Party (joined the ANC) and the Conservative Party (joined the FF), which were the two primary parties in the RSA during the era of apartheid, the Democratic Alliance became the largest predominantly-white party. However, unlikely the FF, it is mostly aligned with Anglos, Jews and other English-speakers, not Afrikaners. What is their position on Afrikaner self-determination?

A: The DA is openly against group rights, and will never support Afrikaner independence, but they might agree to some other form of Afrikaner self-detemination.

Q: What about other parties?

A: Your question is complicated, but I should mention the following:

1. The National Party has died, and they were fierce opponents of our ideas.

2. The Conservative Party has joined the Freedom Front.

3. Our strength regarding supporters has grown - we are literally the only party in the world fighting for the rights of Afrikaners .

4. For what it is worth, we still have a written Accord with the ANC, which makes provision for self-determination; they still owe us an answer.

Q: Are you optimistic about gaining independence for Afrikaners in part of South Africa?

A: If you ask whether we are optimistic abour the future, I must confess that we can see the hand of experienced Communists in everything the government does. And that is a problem.

Q: When it became clear that Afrikaners will no longer be able to govern the RSA and Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) will likely take over reigns of the country, a group of Afrikaners bought an abandoned, remote village of Orania and ever since have tried to create an Afrikaner-only autonomy, refusing to hire others, namely Blacks, to do their labor, and even issuing their own money. What is the FF+ view of Orania and do you cooperate with their leadership?

A: The Freedom Front has a direct interest in the success of Orania, and also assists their information "desk" with a small financial contribution. Orania has growed considerably over the past 10 years, and has also increased in size. The secret of its success lies not only in money, but also in sustainable projects, and in the principle of Afrikaners doing their own labour, whether it be highly skilled scientific work, or manual labour! Never again must we rely on another ethnic group to do our work! You are invited to visit their website at www.orania.co.za

Q: There have been claims that the AWB was set up a provocateur organization by the NP and the RSA intelligence to discredit the Afrikaner right as neo-Nazis. AWB has been plagued with terrible leadership, constant scandals, over-the-top statements and actions, and most of all, has a Nazi-like symbol. Do you know if they are indeed a provocateur organization?

A: We always heard rumours that the AWB was a Security Police set-up. The organisation surely had agents of the Security Services inside, but this is a normal thing for a government to do. But will they ever admit that openly, especially at this late stage? I think not. As long as we do not have any proof, these charges remain mere rumours.

The AWB is a spent force. After 1994, and especially after their leader, Mr. Eugene Terre Blanche was jailed for assaulting a black petrol pump attendant, the movement fell apart. Mr. Terre Blanche is now out of jail on parole, and has very strict rules that he has to adhere to. We do not liaise with the AWB at all, as they simply do not exist anymore. The subject AWB is actually dead in this country.

Q: There have been recent reports about the Freedom Front working to free prisoners jailed for political and/or resistance/terrorist activity.

A: Unfortunately, at this very moment, there still are several men in jail who were imprisoned because of actions they took before 1994, and even after 1994, that were regarded as terrorism. (We know of 18 still in jail).

We are trying our best to have them released with amnesty, in accordance with the whole process of reconciliation. Not only do we want the ex-AWB members released, but also those members of the PAC (DS: PAC is the Pan African Congress that broke away from the ANC in 1959) and even ANC who are still left in jail.

On May 5, 2005, the Citizen newspaper in South Africa had a report called "Escape hatch for struggle villains", which referred to the situation. This report gave us some hope that the government is working on on a way to resolve the problem. But until we see them walk free, they remain in jail.

Meanwhile, the top leadership of the ANC has received blanket amnesty, without even appearing in court!

Q: What has Freedom Front done about the recommendations of the Volkstaat Council that have been ignored by the ANC?

A: They [ANC] still have not yet given any answer! We are still waiting for a response. The FF+ will follow this matter up - we cannot allow them to spend all that money, with no clear answer at all.

David Storobin is a New York lawyer who received Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Rutgers University School of Law. His Master's Thesis (M.A. - Comparative Politics) deals with the historical causes for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. He is also currently on the Board of Directors of the Ibn Khaldun Center for International Research (www.centroik.ufm.edu.gt) at the University of Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. He's been interviewed on radio and cited in books as a political expert.

Interview With Volkstaat Council Chair Johann Wingard

2007-04-11T14:22:00.000+02:00

Afrikaner Independence (2): Interview With Volkstaat Council Chair Johann Wingard David Storobin, Esq. - 5/27/2005

During negotiations between South Africa's White Afrikaners and ANC, as well as other Black groups, some of the Afrikaners demanded the right to self-determination. Nelson Mandela's team promised to discuss the issue further and even included it in the new Constitution. The organization that was set up to make recommendations on the issue was the Volkstaat Council (People's State Council). Johann Wingard was chosen to be the Chairman of the Council. Today, he is discussing with us the Council's work and South Africa after apartheid.

Q: What was the mandate of the Volkstaat Council and how did it come into existence?

A: The peaceful handover of power of 1994 was achieved after lengthy negotiations by the ruling party, the National Party and the ANC/Communist party alliance. The Conservative Party, which was the parliamentary opposition, was simply sidelined during those negotiations. Gen. Constand Viljoen, representing the 'conservative' grouping, agreed with Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma of the ANC, that the unfinished business with ethnic Afrikaners needed to be addressed constitutionally. The Volkstaat Council was to be a constitutional instrument that would make a peaceful election possible. After the elections, the newly formed Freedom Front, lead by Gen. Viljoen, nominated the 20 council members after consultation with the different factions of that grouping. About half the councillors were not members of Viljoen's party. The Council was constituted on the 16th of June, 1994 in the Old Raadsaal on Church Square, Pretoria, the historic seat of Paul Krugers' South African Republic. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, delivered the address at the time.

The Volkstaat Council was established in terms of Section 184A(2) of the interim Constitution for the following purpose:

"...make recommendations and advise the government, the Constitutional Assembly, the Commission on Provincial Government (CPG) and other bodies concerned, regarding self-determination in general and the attainment thereof of a Volkstaat for the Afrikaner."

"The council shall serve as a constitutiuonal mechanism to enable proponents of the idea of a Volkstaat to Constitutionally pursue the establishment of such a Volkstaat."

The clear objective was an effort to tie the so-called right wing Afrikaners, into the new dispensation and to defuse an otherwise explosive situation.

Q: Who made up the Council? Tell us a little about yourself and other key members.

A: Twenty members were elected from all walks of life. Anna Boshoff, wife of Prof. Carel Boshoff and daughter of the late Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, was the only woman. Her son Carel iv also served. Other members were the scientist Dr. Wally Grant, formerly head of Pelindaba, our uranium enrichment facility, Attorney Chris de Jager, now a judge and Professor Hercules Booysen who is an internationally renowned jurist. Other members were Gen. Ernest Pienaar, formerly head of logistical planning of the SA Defence force, Dr. Natie Luyt, Dr. Piet Liebenberg, Dr. Chris Jooste, and Prof. Pikkie Robbertze - four academics; Mr. Koos Reyneke, an architect, Mr. Dirk Viljoen a town planner, Commandant Douw Steyn, a senior member of the civil defence system, Mr. Herman Vercueil an agricultural leader, Gen. Kobus Visser, formerly head of the CID, Mr. Mars de Klerk, an attorney, Flip Buys, a Trade Union executive, Duncan du Bois, a politician, Riaan Visagie, a teacher, and myself. I am a retired industrialist. You can find my biographical details in the Marquis' Who's Who in the World (1996, 13th edition) As can be seen, the members were not political animals, but men of standing in their own professions. There were only four or five full time members - the rest were scattered all over the country and assembled from time to time to attend committee or council meetings.

Q: What were the recommendations of the Council?

A: The Council produced several interim reports as well as a voluminous final report, which summarized the large number of individual monographs and specialist committee reports that were presented to the government from 1994 though 1999. A golden thread was the concept of internal self-determination, which was proposed as a proven device to ensure the support of ethnic minority groups -- so essential for political stability and economic development. Their three key points were:

- Areas where Afrikaners form a natural majority, should enjoy territorial self-determination at second and third tier government levels. These were demarcated. The Northwestern Cape was also mentioned as a potential area. Another was around Pretoria where more than four hundred thousand Afrikaners are living in the northern, eastern and southern Pretoria district and contiguous areas. An independent national state was not envisioned, but a province or federal state was recommended.

- The Government was requested to urgently attend to the establishment of a representative Afrikaner Council, which would be an advisory body acting as the constitutional instrument through which Afrikaners would have some corporate input into state affairs, especially on matters that affect them intimately. Representation in parliament, where numerical power is all that mattered, was not seen as a democratic system for minorities.

- The Government was requested to enact the necessary legislation as soon as possible to implement those recommendations. The council drafted the legislation for the establishment of an Afrikaner Council.

Q: How did the ANC government treat the Council when it existed? How was the Council disbanded?

The Government was never serious about the Council's work. At government official level we were regarded as fellow civil servants, merely doing a job. For serious negotiations, we were palmed off to strange facilitators. One such person being a German financial broker, another one being an emiritus professor of theology and arch liberalist. During a meeting with Pres. Nelson Mandela in the company of Genl Viljoen, I handed the Council's First Interim Report to Mandela. I wanted to discuss the contents, but Mandela was only concerned about agricultural projects for Mozambique and Tanzania, which he discussed with Viljoen. The media cameras were waiting outside. With myself and Viljoen at his side, he assured the world that Afrikaners were not such bad people after all and that he received the Council's report. He promised that the ANC would seriously consider the question of a Volkstaat! One big public relations exercise! That's it!

At other official encounters between the Council and the Government, we usually discussed administrative procedures, with Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairman of the Constitutional Council, who was co-ordinating the drafting of the final constitution. The only time that the ANC showed any interest in our work was at an encounter with a constitutional committee headed by Essop Pahad (now Minister of the Presidency). At that encounter we tabled an interim report and proposed that a tenth province be created where Afrikaners would be in a natural majority. Storming out of the committee room, he accused the Freedom Front of negotiating in bad faith. The press were waiting in the media briefing room, where he delivered a tirade of anti-Afrikaner clichès and rejected out of hand the concept of territorial self-determination as a return to apartheid.

The ANC regarded the Volkstaat Council as a 'sick joke', to paraphrase one of the leading black intellectuals during his address to the Council. Instead of defusing a constitutional deadlock, they deceived ethnic Afrikaners with empty promises of self-determination. The council's budget was simply terminated, but the Council was never formally disbanded. Not a single action resulting from the Volkstaat Council's reports emanated from the ANC government. I doubt if any government official ever opened any of our reports to read them. Thousands of high quality manhours were spent, but the ANC unashamedly reneged on the accord they made with General Viljoen to make a peaceful transition of power possible.

Q: What were/are the views of the Democratic Alliance [liberal representing mostly non-Afrikaner whites], New National Party [came out of the National Party, but became much more liberal and represented liberal white Afrikaners], Conservative Party [represented conservative Afrikaners until it joined Freedom Front], Freedom Front [slightly more moderate than the Conservative Party], AWB [extremist Afrikaner Resistence Movement], Inkatha [represents the Zulu tribe], PAC [represents radical Blacks who are usually hostile to Whites] and other parties on the Council and its recommendation? Who was most supportive and most hostile?

A: Naturally the FF was the most supportive, but, when it mattered most, they failed to provide a solid political platform for the Council's recommendations for self determination in the Pretoria area. The National Party was silent, but supported the concept of corporate self-determination via a representative council for Afrikaners. The CP accused the Council members as traitors to the cause of Afrikaners and warned that nothing could emerge from the Council's endeavours as the ANC were hell bent on a centralised phylosophy of Africanization. The AWB were not a factor. Inkatha was very sympathetic and I had useful discussions with [Zulu and Inkatha leader] Dr. Buthelezi in Cape Town. The Democratic Party [which later merged with the Federal Alliance to form the Democratic Alliance party], as it was at the time, did not support the Council's 'ethnic' approach as they were the great protagonists of the liberal dream, where the individual is placed above group interests. However, for tactical reasons, they were not vehemently outspoken.

In short, the Council was short-changed on political support and subsequently allowed to peter out.

Q: Do you have any hopes of any significant recommendations being implemented?

A: No. Afrikaners will have to shed blood for any form of self-determination, as elsewhere in the world. They were sold a pup with that constitutional mechanism. The African psyche only respects credible power. Having dismantled all the Afrikaners' power structures over ten years, they do not fear him anymore and need not consider him as anything but a useful tax base.

Q: Are you hopeful about Afrikaners gaining independence or autonomy in any part of the RSA?

A: No. The only way to achieve that aim is the African way. Civil war. Africanism is as absolute as Mohammedism [Islam]. Afrikaners are regarded as the lawful prey after a fair power contest. They were overpowered "democratically" and should now keep quiet while their assets are being distributed in the name of Black empowerment, whilsts their objected-to Western culture is being desimated.

Q: What made the NP surrender Afrikaner political power, even though they were backed by nuclear weapons, as well as Africa's strongest military, intelligence services and economy?

A: After the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, the Boer leaders were confronted by the British negotiators. The Boers had nothing to bring to the table, other than integrity and guts. Their economy was destroyed. They have lost one third of their women and children in those awful concentration camps, which were nothing other than a system of ethnic cleansing. Nearly a hundred years later, Afrikaners were a superpower in African terms. As you say, they were a nuclear power and had a world wide intelligence system that functioned well. Their negotiators had all the hardware of war and supportive stuctures as well as a well functioning economy to bring to the table. What was lacking was integrity and guts, so that they succumbed to a tattered group of terrorists who no longer had the support of a superpower called the Soviet Union.

But during the negotiations, the man who was supposed to be his team's inspiration, was committing adultery in a millionaire's yacht in the Meditteranean Sea with a Greek businessman's wife, whom he later married. His team, headed Roelf Meyer, was already so completely brainwashed by liberal American interests, that they were a pushover for the ANC. I dealt with Meyer when he was the responsible cabinet minister for the Volkstaat Council. Sorry to say, I would not have employed him to buy me a truck, let alone to negotiate the sovereignty of a proud people like the Boer-Afrikaners. The unmandated negotiators disregarded the fact that no government or group of officials can legally alienate the inherent sovereignty of a people as an accepted international law.

Pressure from the business sector is an objective factor that should not be ignored. Ethnicity is a centrifugal force that tends to separate people, causing them to compete for resources, but the economy and sport are centripetal forces which tend to unite peoples and their interests. Business therefore saw Afrikaner ethnicity as a divisive issue to be downplayed. The pressures of big business on the negotiation process should never be underestimated. Business reckoned that they would co-opt black politicians in the same manner as they co-opted white politicians in the past, So, why not change governments as expediently as possible?

Q: Tell us about the town of Orania and the progress it is making.

A: I am sorry to say that I am unable to talk positively about Orania. I believe that it is an unrealistic dream, not unlike the Dutch of Pennsylvania. Sure, there is some progress, as would have been the case with any other property development project after ten years or longer.

Q: Do you believe Orania may become autonomous in the future, or will it become a small irrelevant village, or will it even be eliminated by the South African government?

A: No, not without bloodshed. Orania is a symbol, an icon, nothing more.

Q: Radio Pretoria has been making waves in support of Afrikaner independence. Can you tell us about them and about other media fighting for this cause?

A: I can only marvel at the resillience of Radio Pretoria's management. The printed media is trying to be politically correct so as to ensure their share of government printing contracts. Apart from an isolated small newspaper, such as the AFRIKANER, no paper serves the cause of the Afrikaner nation any more. The internet is an exception.

Q: What organizations are fighting for Afrikaner self-determination, autonomy and/or independence? How strong are they? Are they well-respected or dismissed as a tiny radical fringe?

A: Afrikaner self-determination has become a curse word in many circles and regarded as a right wing notion. Intellectuals who are still active in government circles are afraid of being victimized or that their careers may be put in jeopardy if they associate openly with the concept of self-determination, due to the fact that government policy is to forge a single nation without ethnic fault lines. There are at least thirty Afrikaner organisations who are mustering energy towards self-determination for Afrikaners. They are all splinter groups. Relics from the apartheid era, such as the Broederbond (the Brotherhood - a secret society who regulated the cultural and political landscape during the apartheid era) and the FAK (Federation of Afrikaner Cultural Organisations) are trying to transform themselves to find new horizons and visions so as to survive in a world where they no longer have any relevance or function. Those organisations are all discredited. Afrikaners have withdrawn from public and political life like snails reverting to their shells. Their ambitions and political aspirations are dormant like an Etna or Vesuvius. When and how it will erupt is uncertain. But erupt it will. The ANC's notion that the Afrikaner nation has surrendered its sovereignty is erroneous and unfounded. Just as every free person is sovereign in his own circle, so is every group of persons who consider themselves to be a free people.

Q: What are your views of the ANC? Are they better or worse than you expected in 1994?

A: The ANC turned out to be exactly as was forecasted by the renowned anthropologist Dr. Wiets Beukes when he wrote (in Afrikaans): "South Africa under a Black Government, a prognosis against the background history of Black Africa and its Thought Processes. (1993)". Although Beukes warned of an impending danger, he was ignored in 1993-94. He predicted with uncanny accuracy that a black government with unbridled 'democratic' power would follow the same patterns as all African states before it. It is in the African psyche to do so.

The demonisation of the Afrikaner community was crucial for the policies of black empowerment to survive international legal and moral scrutiny. Black empowerment is blatant racial discrimination - even worse than under the apartheid government. So it required a platform to ameliorate its moral acceptability.

Rectifying the injustices of the past was the 'hobby horse' selected. At the time, the only injustice that existed was that some South Africans were of Western and others of African extraction. That could be seen as 'an injustice to humanity' per se as a clash of civilizations was inevitable. The ANC is now turning out to be a cynical, power-hungry group of politicians, in which the Moslem community, as well as the communists have a level of influence way beyond their numerical relevance. Members of the Xhosa tribe dominate the upper hierarchy of central government as well as in provincial government. The concept of Black Empowerment is turning out to be a way of getting super rich quickly for a handful of blacks, while the White man on the street is forced by the "guidelines" to share his little business with black partners who often is unable to contribute a bean towards the future of the enterprise. A white Afrikaner cannot buy a filling station, for example, without a black partner, whereas a Indian from London, who recently arrived in this country, may do so. The oil companies would otherwise not replenish the depot's storage tanks.

A black person from Tanzania is employed ahead of a white Afrikaner on the grounds of transformation. When I called him an immigrant, he retorted that he was an African, I, a Boer, was the immigrant.

Transformation means 'changing the colour of the demographic landscape from white to black'. That is blatant discrimination and ethnic cleansing, justified by the concept of "the injustices suffered by the black majority during colonial rule".

The concept of apartheid existed throughout the African colonies and the Afrikaners now seem to have to bear the guilt of the colonial powers who imposed the policy of racial segregation over the centuries.

Q: What future do you see for RSA? Do you see civil wars and/or expulsion of Whites, or do you believe the country will see multi-racial harmony where Blacks and Whites can live and prosper together in peace.

A: A massive reservoir of goodwill exists between South Africans of all colours and creeds. But that reservoir is getting smaller by the day. People only fight civil wars when they have nothing to lose. Due to discriminatory measures, poverty is creeping up on Afrikaners and a few thousand of them have already crossed that threshold. They will be easy meat for activists.

Afrikaners have lost all control over their culture and their schools. Strangers who do not speak their language are now deciding on the curricula of the few remaining Afrikaans schools. Prior to 1994 there were more than 2,700 such schools, while today, only eleven years later, there are less than 300 left. Unless Afrikaners soon deal with that scenario in an organised manner by means of a statutary Afrikaner Council (similar to the Jewish Board of Deputies) so as to present a coherent and credible front to the government and the international community, splinter groups wil soon emerge with catastrophic results for peace in this country. South Africa's whites are born and bred in Africa and want to stay and make the country a success. But I'm afraid that the psyche of the African is the same in the Eastern, Southern, Northern and Western parts of Africa. The decay and neglect that has already set in during the eleven years of African rule is starkly visible in every walk of life, in every town, in every government department and in business. I regret to say that I see no prospect for that process of decay to stop. The same applies to the decay in relationships between ethnic groups.

Q: What are the main problems facing Afrikaners and all other South Africans today?

A: Representivity. Participatory democracy. Unemployent. Poor economic growth. Cultural chauvinism expressed as self-assertion. But the biggest single problem is crime. Nobody is safe anymore. The liberal constitution that ensures even criminal constitutional rights sent the wrong signal that crime actually pays. The rampant replacement of professional white policement by affirmative action applicants has just about destroyed the entire police system.

Q: What have been the successes and failures of the ANC so far?

The ANC's biggest success thus far is to shed the communist economic doctrine in favor of a free market economy. Cynics, however, claim that this was inevitable - otherwise how could the twenty thousand new black millionaires keep their largesse? Their biggest failure is to win over the hearts and minds of the white community, addressing the AIDS epidemic, and combating crime.

We must delve deeper into new wave of Afrikaner siege mentality

2007-03-28T21:50:00.000+02:00

Some vitriolic nonsense on how the ANC indulged the Freedom Front by setting up of a Volkstaat Council.

We must delve deeper into new wave of Afrikaner siege mentality Sunday Times Editor, Mondli Makhanya. 25 February 2007
COMMENT ON THIS: tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at: 33971
I remember attending a Freedom Front congress about 10 years ago and listening to speakers lament the lot of the Afrikaner in the new South Africa.
The words hulle (them) and ons (us) came up a lot during animated speeches about the future of the Afrikaner. Uncertainty reigned in the community, which had lost power after 40 years of rule. Some of the debates taking place within Afrikanerdom were about establishing a system of limited self-rule within the republic.
As part of the pre-election settlement, the ANC had agreed to the setting up of a Volkstaat Council, which would look into the feasibility of such an Afrikaner homeland.
After his inauguration as President, Nelson Mandela had graciously given the Volkstaat Council a generous budget and offices where they could draw maps, use calculators and write their dreams into fancy computers. They travelled widely and studied models of self-governance elsewhere in the world. In the end, they came up with a squiggly, snaking and patchy map of a homeland that stretched from one end of the country to the other.
They handed their report to Mandela, who congratulated them on their diligent work, and then suggested a referendum among Afrikaners on whether they would like to live in such a place.
They have not been heard of since.
One would have thought that this was the end of Afrikaner nationalism, save for a few Boeremag madcaps here and there. Well, that was the case for a while. And then, in the past two years, there has suddenly been a surge in tribal thinking among Afrikaners.
What is bothersome about this wave of mobilisation is that — unlike the Volkstaat types or the Boeremag lunatics — it is quite mainstream. If media coverage and anecdotal tales are anything to go by, there is a strong feeling of victimisation and a sense that it is time to fight back against something.
It leaves me wondering: “What did I miss?” Did something recently happen that resulted in a reduction of the status of Afrikaners? Was there a pronouncement that said Afrikaners were henceforth to be regarded as lesser South Africans than others? Was there an edict that reduced their rights?
If any of these events did happen, then I must apologise for having been fast asleep while a dastardly act was being committed against our fellow citizens.
But this thing happening out there, as with any form of ethnic mobilisation, is cause for concern.
As much as we would like to dismiss the rallying around the Koos de la Rey song as just another passing phenomenon, it is not a cultural fad that will fade away to the fringes of society, like hippiedom and womb-worship.
I have read the lyrics of the song and they are quite ... well ... “struggle” orientated. We have all seen the reaction of the crowds when the song gets played at cultural festivals and at sporting events. It has clearly struck a chord among a generation who feel they have been hard done by in the democratic South Africa.
Why they feel this way is a great mystery to me. The new South Africa has been good for Afrikaners, better than apartheid South Africa in many respects.
Their language is no longer regarded as the language of the oppressor and is jealously protected by those who once took to the streets to reject it.
In both the public and the private sectors it enjoys a status far above that of the other official languages, other than English. It is thriving in the print and electronic media and its literature is in bloom.
In business, Afrikaners have done well. Freed from the bondage of the civil service, they have transformed themselves into great entrepreneurs.
Afrikaner symbols still dominate our urban landscapes and Afrikaner sportsmen are everybody’s heroes nowadays.
One could go on and on.
Ten years after that FF congress, one would have thought that the hulle and ons issues would have been worked out of our system.
But these are just the opinions of a lowly newspaperman. Perhaps wiser counsel would advise better.
I suspect, however, that wiser counsel would probably tell the newspaperman that what is incensing Afrikaners is the removal of Voortrekker and National Party names from street signs and city billboards. To them, this is the ultimate message of defeat.
But this is very odd, as name changes were bound to happen — and the only surprise is that it took so long.
Wiser counsel would also talk of how crime is affecting this community.
Then again, crime is not the exclusive preserve of any one group. And if anyone could lay claim to being the worst victims of the crime wave, it would be the black working class.
Then wise counsel would speak of the encroachment of English into Afrikaans life. Even here Afrikaners are not alone. Speakers of other African languages are equally resentful of the weed-like invasion of English.
Wise counsel would speak then of how employment equity has disadvantaged Afrikaner youths. Well, if you look at the reality on the ground, you will see a lot more black graduates walking the streets, suffering a worse fate than any Afrikaners would suffer.
Appealing to the Afrikaner’s sense of logic, in isolation, is unfortunately not going to help stop this retreat into a laager. We all need to delve deeper into what lies behind this siege mentality. And why now?

Volkstaat in the Western Cape

2007-02-21T10:08:00.000+02:00

Here is another map for a volkstaat, form African Crisis. This one was chosen by the author for strategic reasons. Every province but the Eastern Cape and KZN has now featured on a volkstaat map.

S.Africa: My Maps for a White Homeland In my previous post I mentioned the L-shaped piece of terrain which I thought whites could seize in the Cape. It is a small portion of the Cape. But it would be more than large enough to house a population of many millions of whites if need be. I thought what the heck, let me scan a map and draw the borders based on natural features - mountains and rivers which are nice and defensible and which would be an attacker's nightmare. This is pretty much in line with the sort of area I envisaged when I wrote my book. The map below is the small version of it so that you can see at a glance that I am referring to the very southern tip of S.Africa. The border I envisage as a minimum is the one drawn in red. As you can see it would cover the northern tips of ranges of mountains. Very defensible. The borders might be a bit long, but I think it would be very doable because many things in the Cape favour us. Then there's the question of Port Elizabeth. The blue line is an alternate border suggestion, which seizes some mountains and a river which runs to the north of Port Elizabeth which would give us a 2nd city - and a 3rd port! [2 Photos] S.Africa: My Maps for a White Homeland I thought I'd put up this huge, close-up version of the same map so you can see all the towns, rivers, roads and features of our country!! I was not too steady with my mouse so the border is a bit squiggly. For example I see Lambert's bay falls outside our northern boundary. We'll have to change it to include Lambert's bay dammit! I forgot... our country would include the Koeberg Nuclear power station! You will see it also includes some nice railway lines which run north along the west coast, and east along the southern coast. As you can see, our country doesn't have any of those rubbish ANC names. All the names have been changed by our parliament in Cape Town back to what they were! I hope the spooks show my map to President Mbeki when next National Intelligence briefs him! Hehehe. Jan

FW may sue for libel

2006-12-27T23:11:00.000+02:00

Former President F W de Klerk is considering legal action following claims he received millions of dollars in exchange for handing over the country to the ANC.

HNP leader Willie Marais told The Citizen the allegations were made by former State President P W Botha in an interview with a Dutch newspaper a few days before his death.

Marais said Botha claimed De Klerk had received between three and four million US dollars, honorary doctorates and the Nobel Peace Prize “in exchange for handing over the country to the ANC”.

The HNP leader said Botha had claimed he was made a similar offer, but had rejected it. Asked who had made the offer, Marais said Botha did not mention who the generous donor was.

“I have written a letter to Mr De Klerk demanding his explanation,” Marais said.

“We want to know when Mr De Klerk received the money and why he has not declared that money.

“We also want to know why the Scorpions are not looking into the matter,” the HNP leader said.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said he was not aware of the HNP request for an investigation.

“However, such allegations do not fall within the scope of the Scorpions.”

In his response, De Klerk said the allegations were, in the view of his legal advisers, “libellous”.

He reserved the right to take whatever action he deemed fit.

“Instead of hankering back to racist domination and fairy tale Volkstaat, the HNP should accept the reality of the new SA."

“It should support the efforts of the F W de Klerk Foundation to protect the constitutional rights of all South Africans – including the culture and rights of Afrikaners.”

De Klerk said the prizes he was awarded by the international community – particularly the Nobel Peace Prize – were all a matter of public record.

They were awarded long after he and the government had committed themselves to the essential and unavoidable course of democratic constitutional reform.

Orania community to form multi-disciplinary team

2006-12-27T23:10:00.000+02:00

October 22, 2005, 18:15

The Orania Afrikaner community has resolved to form a multi-disciplinary team, aimed at drawing up a proposal for the self-determination of its culture and language grouping, soon to be tabled before Parliament. This forms part of the resolutions taken at a conference dubbed Article 235 and The Politics of Self-Determination by the ultra-conservative volkstaat community.

The three-day event ended today.

Karel Boshoff junior, the chairperson of the Orania Movement, says they have taken notice of the opportunities and limitations of Section 235 of the constitution.

Earlier, Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, a political analyst, expressed worry that an exclusive part of the country was being idolised. He warned against the abuse of power. "The majority begins to get irritated. It gets irritated with the constitutional court; it gets irritated with the bench or the Human Rights Commission. Then it says well, we're not gonna get rid of them, we're simply gonna see to it that our people will be on those institutions," he said.

Jakes Gerwel, the chancellor of Rhodes University, on the other hand said although the Constitution makes provision for self-determination, the challenge lies in implementing it. "That's the big question - how do you realise the space or the promise that is contained in 235. I don't know. But it says something about the way we could accommodate the wishes of different groups in the country."

Orania land claim settled at last

2006-12-27T23:09:00.001+02:00

December 04, 2006, 20:45

The land claim on the Afrikaner enclave Orania has been awarded to a group of coloured people.

The land claims commission has confirmed that the claim has been approved by Lulu Xingwana, the land affairs minister. Virgil Gaborone, the Land Commission Project manager, says the community opted for financial restitution.

Eighty households’ members, who previously resided at Orania, will share R2.9 million. A consortium headed by Carel Boshoff, a professor, bought Orania in 1991 to realise his dream of a Volkstaat for Afrikaners.

Gaborone says the claim was lodged by Roos Viljoen in 1994 on behalf of the community. He says the land claim measures 480 000 hectares. Gaborone says they intend to finalise the claim by the end of next month.

Meanwhile, Orania residents say they are unaware of the latest development. They say they have been waiting for feedback from the land claims commission.

“If the government decides to pay them… we've got no problem with that. As far as claiming the land, that's something quiet different. When we came here in 1991, the place was virtually in ruins, many of the houses were dismantled, there was game wandering around in the town and we bought it for approximately R1.4 million,” said Manie Opperman, the Orania mayor.

Displaced coloured community claims Orania

2006-12-27T23:09:00.000+02:00

November 28, 2005, 17:45

The Land Claims Commission has confirmed that a claim by a displaced community on the proposed Afrikaner volkstaat, Orania, is at an advanced stage. About 67 people, who claim to have been forcefully removed from the area in 1991, have lodged a land claim with the commission. The claim was published in the government gazette last week and the residents of Orania have 30 days to oppose the claim.

Piet Vos, who has lived in Orania since the age of 12, was forced off his the land when Carel Boshoff bought the farm in 1991 and created Orania. Vos and the other 66 people were told to leave. "Carel Boshoff did not want to negotiate with us. They forcefully removed us and that hurt us," said Vos, one of the claimants.

Residents of Orania say they have researched the history of the town and they do not believe a land claim will be successful. Danie Opperman, the Orania mayor, agrees. "Most of the people left because their project ended and it is in the nature of a construction camp that people must go when their project is ended," said Opperman.

The Land Claims Commission says all the requirements need to be looked at before a decision can be made.

Self-determination enshrined in constitution

2006-12-27T23:07:00.000+02:00

October 20, 2005, 21:00

There is nothing wrong if communities in South Africa strive for self-determination, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, a political analyst said at Orania.

"It is enshrined in our constitution," Van Zyl Slabbert told delegates at a conference on article 235 of the Constitution.

The conference organised by the Orania Movement at Orania in the Northern Cape aims to look at how article 235 of the constitution could be practically implemented.

Van Zyl Slabbert said the constitution holds that communities have the right to self-determination; therefore they should be allowed to manifest themselves provided they do not contradict the constitution.

He said generally there was not enough awareness of the implications of constitutional rights and privileges.

Some eight speakers will debate article 235 at the conference. Among them are Carel Boshoff, the chairperson of the Orania Movement, Jakes Gerwel, the chancellor of Rhodes University, Pieter Mulder, the Freedom Front Plus leader, and Flip Buys, the CEO of Solidarity.

Self-determination faces challenges

2006-12-27T23:06:00.000+02:00

October 21, 2005, 18:15

Efforts at self-determination by groups in South Africa still face various obstacles, Jakes Gerwel, the chancellor of Rhodes University, said today.

"Though there is room to move forward in terms of article 235 it should not be accompanied by the perception of crude ethnic diversity," Gerwel told delegates at a conference on self-determination. Some 100 delegates from across South Africa are attending the two-day conference at Orania in the Northern Cape.

Article 235 of the constitution recognises a culture and language-community's self-determination within the framework of the constitution and law. The conference, organised by the Orania Movement, is examining how article 235 of the constitution could be practically implemented.

Gerwel said one of the challenges faced in regard to efforts of self-determination was to steer clear of all perceptions pertaining to racism.

Carel Boshoff, the chairman of the Orania movement, said earlier that the conference message was a positive one. "We want this conference to be a voice across South Africa in making the idea of a territorial entity for people representing a certain cultural and language group more acceptable," he said.

Boshoff said the conference was also aimed at guarding that article 235 did not fall in disuse. "This could lead to it losing its force," he said.

The village of Orania, between Hopetown and Petrusville, was bought about 15 years ago by a group of individuals in an effort to set-up a self proclaimed Volkstaat.

The conference continues tomorrow.

Orania to help poor Afrikaners

2006-12-27T23:04:00.000+02:00

The white separatist enclave of Orania in the Northern Cape, said today said it was launching a project to assist poor Afrikaners financially.

Eleanor Lombard, a spokesperson for Orania, said in a statement more and more Afrikaners were struggling to make ends meet. Some of these people go to Orania in an attempt to start over and make a living.

She said the community in Orania wanted to reach out to these people, but the financial demand to supply them with housing and jobs were too much. To meet this demand, an aid fund has been set up to collect money.

A project would also be launched next year to allow homeless Afrikaner children to go to school in Orania. The success of this project would however depend on donations, Lombard said.

Mufamadi praises report on Orania

2006-12-27T23:03:00.000+02:00

Sydney Mufamadi, the Provincial and Local Government Minister, has praised the report compiled by a technical committee on the municipal status of the Afrikaner community in the Northern Cape, Orania.

Brent Simon, the ministerial spokesperson, said that Mufamadi was of the opinion that the report recommended a possible solution to the municipal status of the town, which opened up new possibilities. He said a Cabinet memorandum would now be compiled and possibly be discussed by a committee on May 9.

Orania obtained a court order in December 2000 to stop it being demarcated with Strydenburg and Hopetown into a single municipality. The town was granted a transitional representative council in 1995, giving it autonomy.

The court recommended that a technical committee be appointed to investigate the feasibility of Orania having its own municipality. The report also said that Orania should not have its own municipality, but that it should be demarcated with Vanderkloof, a town at the Vanderkloof Dam.

It recommended that a Cabinet committee should investigate the implementation of Section 235 of the Constitution, which guarantees self-determination to groups with a common language, culture and interests.

Mufamadi congratulated the committee on the completion of its task, but did not disband it, as was expected. The committee might have more work to do once Cabinet has reached a decision on the issue.

Orania is an exclusively white Afrikaner community of about 600 people. The conservative area's main industry is agriculture.

Orania hands report on independence to Mufamadi

2006-12-27T23:02:00.000+02:00

The exclusively white community of Orania in the Northern Cape is to hand a report on its status as an independent municipality to Sydney Mufamadi, the Local Government Minister today, a spokesperson for Orania says.

Carel Boshoff says in a statement that the report was the result of a 14-month study of the desirability for Orania to have its own local government structures, after it was demarcated with Hopetown and Strydenburg into the Thembelihle municipality.

Boshoff says the community went to court just before the local government elections in 2000 to fight the demarcation and to insist on its own local government structures. The court granted an order that the demarcation should be halted and that an independent committee should be appointed to investigate the feasibility of the community having its own municipality.

The town's rural transitional representative council, which was granted in 1995, was retained for the duration of the investigation.

Boshoff says the report makes four recommendations. The first of being that the town should not have its own municipality. Secondly it recommends that Orania should rather be demarcated with Van der Kloof, a town at the Van der Kloof dam. Thirdly it says that certain municipal services should be delegated to the Orania community itself via a contract. The fourth recommendation is that a cabinet committee should investigate the community's right to self-determination as guaranteed by the Constitution.

Boshoff says the report contained all the elements to reach a positive agreement. He expressed the hope that the government would regard it in the same light.

Orania is a small Afrikaner community of about 600 people near Hopetown in the Northern Cape. Its main industry is agriculture.

The TRC and the Volkstaat

2006-12-26T01:51:00.000+02:00

AC/99/0344

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION

AMNESTY COMMITTEE

APPLICATION IN TERMS OF SECTION 18 OF THE PROMOTION OF NATIONAL UNITY AND 
RECONCILIATION ACT, NO. 34 OF 1995

JOHANNES PETRUS OLIVIER APPLICANT

(AM6483/97)

DECISION

The applicant was a member of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging in April 1994. 
He was then also employed in the South African Police Services.

Upon instructions of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, he packed up his 
belongings in Durban, sold his house and went to Ventersdorp in the belief of 
preparing for war from which the establishment of a Boere Volkstaat would flow.

In pursuance of this venture, the applicant, with another attempted to 
discharge a bomb in the district of Benoni and Boksburg. However, he was 
arrested before the bomb could be discharged and after he deliberately rode 
through a formal roadblock.

His actions were committed with a political motive. His application satisfies 
the requirements of the Act.

Consequently amnesty is GRANTED for the following acts:-

(i) Unlawful possession of explosives as envisaged in Section 28 read with 
sections 1 and 27 of Act 26 of 1956;

(ii) Failing to adhere to an instruction to stop at a roadblock;

(iii) Conspiracy to contravene Section 27(i) of Act 26 of 1956.

Dated at Cape Town this 10th day of December 1999.

Restitution in South Africa and the Accommodation of an Afrikaner Ethnic Minority

2006-11-26T20:25:00.000+02:00

Hendrik W. van der Merwe and Thomas J. Johnson

Afrikaners under Siege in the New South Africa

The only white political grouping which used to focus on ethnicity as a key issue in the old South Africa was the right wing, chiefly represented by the Conservative Party (CP) but including a number of smaller far-right parties and less conservative groupings as well. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe boosted the morale of the Conservative Party and its allies, who pointed to the failure of a superpower to contain ethnic fragmentation and to suppress the struggle of different groups for self-determination. In light of the recent Eastern European experience, they argued cogently in favor of political independence and autonomy for their ethnic group.

Self-determination of the "volk," nationalism and group identity have been key concepts in traditional Afrikaner thought. In the transition process towards a new democratic South Africa, such concepts have been repudiated in many Afrikaner circles. However, in others the isolationist mentality of old has been reinforced by the real threat of being swamped and reduced to an insignificant minority. A search for secure foundations has led a number of Afrikaners to believe that only an Afrikaner homeland (volkstaat) will ensure their survival as a distinct group, preserving their language, culture and religion.

These homelanders or volkstaaters viewed themselves as Boere or "ethnic" Afrikaners, unlike those "renegade" Afrikaners who were willing to be absorbed into the new multiracial South Africa. The latter, were somewhat derogatorily termed "Alternative Afrikaners" who no longer constituted an exclusive "volk," but merely one group among many others. Comparison has been made with "bittereinders" who fought until the end of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), as opposed to the "ehnsoppers" who gave up and joined the British. There was an intense feeling in right-wing circles that the National Party had betrayed the Afrikaner by aligning itself with the Afrikaner's traditional enemies: black liberation movements, communism, English and Jewish capitalism, and the international community. These enemies of the Afrikaner were seen as attacking his church, his religion, his beliefs, his sense of history, his culture, traditions and customs. The perception was that these enemies plan to destroy the unity of the Afrikaner people so that Afrikaners become individuals who can be swallowed up by the so-called New South Africa, becoming subordinates and facing extinction. Right-wingers believed that the only alternative was for Afrikaners to unite and become a free nation in an independent Afrikaner homeland.

Afrikaner Homeland as Evolving Symbol

The best known and most detailed proposal was that of the Afrikaner-Vryheidstigting (Afrikaner Freedom Foundation, Avstig), headed by Professor Carel Boshoff (son-in-law of the late Dr. H. F. Verwoerd), which grew out of the cultural movement, the Afrikaner-Volkswag. Until mid-1991, Avstig, like the Conservative Party, believed that there was little room for compromise. They insisted on complete political independence as a precondition for negotiations and refused to participate in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) where the new dispensation for South Africa was being negotiated.

In due course, a group of Avstig leaders realized that they were becoming isolated and would have no impact on the formation of the new South Africa. Because of their "racist" reputation, no leading black politicians were willing to talk to them. At this stage, these leaders asked the principal author of this paper to act as mediator between them and the ANC. During a series of meetings over a period of more than one year, an ever-widening number of regional and national leaders from both sides established close contact and developed relationships of respect and trust. During this period Avstig announced several major policy shifts.

Instead of propagating a white homeland, a racist concept, they now advocated an Afrikaner homeland (in Orania in the Northern Cape Province), a cultural concept: a homeland for Afrikaans speakers regardless of race or color. They also decided to participate in the negotiation process without rigid preconditions (Van der Merwe, 1993:4; Lombard, 1993:5).

In discussions between Avstig and ANC leaders, the latter emphasizes that ethnicity could never be acceptable as long as there was any trace of "baasskap" (domination) associated with it. Ethnicity could be acknowledged once there was a guarantee that "baasskap" had been finally done away with (Sachs, 1993:5,16) On 2 March 1993, two delegations led by Nelson Mandela and Professor Carel Boshoff met in Johannesburg. Following his meeting with Boshoff, Mandela made a public statement in which he expressed his sympathy with the wish of the Afrikaners to retain their language and culture and invited them to participate in the multi-party negotiations and to submit their case for a homeland for Afrikaans-speakers.

In contrast to numerous cases elsewhere (especially Yugoslavia, see for instance, Denitch, 1994), ethnicity in this particular case - thanks to wise cultural and political leadership - shows itself amenable to depoliticization in the sense that this culture does not claim sovereignty "but relativizes itself on behalf of constitutionalism" (Bekker, 1993:106). South Africa has fared better than most other countries on most propositions listed by David Welsh in a global review (1993:79).

With the establishment of the new government in 1994, provision was made for formal consideration of an Afrikaner homeland by a clause in the new constitution in terms of which a Volkstaat Council was established. The task of this Council is to advise the government about the advisability and practical implementation of an Afrikaner homeland. Even though this Council produced no meaningful results by the beginning of 1996, it was included as part of the final constitution which was adopted in May 1996.

Avstig (the Afrikaner Freedom Foundation,) advocating an Afrikaner homeland in the Northern Cape, became an important partner in the Freedom Front, the major political party representing "right-wing" or "ethnic" Afrikaners in Parliament. The Volkstaat Council, unfortunately, was dominated by ultra-conservative members who still cling to views of a white homeland in the northern part of the country. The Council therefore failed to reach agreement on the geographic location of the proposed homeland.

The retention of the Volkstaat Council in the new constitution is evidence of the prevailing spirit of conciliation and a commitment to negotiation especially between the ANC and the Freedom Front. It is to be expected that this Council will gradually acquire primarily a symbolic role. The idea of an independent state is unacceptable to black leadership. The prospects of an Afrikaner homeland as a geographic and economically viable unit is questionable, but the symbolic importance of an Afrikaner "heartland" is obvious. A symbolic ethnic Afrikaner heartland could be accommodated in the new South Africa. Symbols, often everyday familiar names and images, possess connotations that extend beyond their conventional meaning. As Carl Jung argued (1964:20-21): "Thus a word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. It has a wider unconscious aspect that is never precisely defined or fully explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it. As the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason."

Because symbols provide a link between the visible world and the supra-sensible world, where the most deeply-felt aspirations of humanity reside, they are powerful forces for either unity or division. In the transitional process towards a new South Africa, symbols are undergoing substantial reevaluation. Sectarian symbols that are associated with historical and often violent and destructive divisions in the past are no longer acceptable.

The increasing concern about the future of Afrikaans in the new South Africa reflects the importance of sacred symbols in a time of change and conflict. Afrikaans and English are both official languages, but differ greatly in many respects. Because Afrikaans was the language of the government, it is also seen as the symbol of the National Party and apartheid. This symbolism has political repercussions. The extent to which the new South African flag, however, was widely and enthusiastically accepted by all population groups, speaks well for the spirit of conciliation prevailing at present.

Who was Siener van Rensburg?

2006-11-22T20:42:00.000+02:00

Who was the seer, and what makes his prophecies unique? During the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, no one was more renowned in the Western Transvaal than Nicolaas van Rensburg, the seer.

He was a legend during his lifetime, and not only did famous generals of the Boer War, like De La Rey and Kemp, believe that he was a prophet, but statesmen like Gen. Hertzog, Louis Botha and J.C. Smuts on more than one occasion witnessed, even in Parliament, that Nicolaas van Rensburg's prophecies came true during their lifetime.

There is enough evidence to prove that Nicolaas van Rensburg was no charlatan.

The only book he read was the Bible, and he believed that his visions came directly from God. And never did he practice occultism. He was a devoted Christian and never used his gift of prophecy for personal gain, nor did he attempt to impress anyone. He believed that you must live your life in honor of God, and many Bible verses are found in his prophecies. To this day, it has not yet been proven that any of his prophecies were false.

Seer Nicolaas van Rensburg, also known as the Boer Prophet, died in 1926, but even today he is still considered to be one of the most remarkable personages in our history. From 1871 (when he was only 7 years old) until his death in 1926, he had over 700 visions about his people in South Africa, other nations, as well as world affairs. Although many of his visions were passed on by word of mouth, during the last decade of his life he asked his daughter, Anna, to write down his daily visions.

Some of the most accurate prophecies van Rensburg made between 1899, at the start of the Anglo-Boer War, and his death in 1926 include the outcome of the Boer War – victory for the British Empire – the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918, England's later loss of all her colonies, independence for Ireland and the atomic disaster at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986.

Van Rensburg also predicted the divorce and tragic death of a beautiful English lady in a car accident who would be mourned by the whole world, which I believe could be none other than the late Princess of Wales, Diana.

Other prophecies that proved accurate include van Rensburg's assertion that the founder of "Grand Apartheid," Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, would die at the hand of a close friend. "Grand Apartheid" proposed billions of rands for financing equal socio-industrial infrastructure in black homelands. Verwoerd was assassinated, say many Afrikaners, because his plan would have given the blacks a chance for equal development and thus would have made South Africa not only rich, but socially and culturally stable.

Van Rensburg also prophesied the release of Nelson Mandela by ex-President F.W. de Klerk and that South Africa would be governed by a black government.

In addition, van Rensburg predicted civil war in Bosnia. His predictions, Snyman said, after examining van Rensburg's manuscripts housed in a museum in Lichtenburg, include prophecies that Japan will be destroyed by earthquakes, that racial violence will explode worldwide at the turn of the century and begin World War III, and that the UK would be hit by several plagues at the start of World War III.

It is a chilling experience to read about van Rensburg's predictions in 1920 of this coming third and final war at the beginning of the 21st century, when the armies of the world will use what he called 'terrible electrical rays that sow death and destruction from above and below, and soak the earth in blood.

The old prophet described the events on the battlefields of the world in such detail, as though he himself had been an eyewitness.

Nicolaas Pieter Johannes Janse van Rensburg was born on August 3, 1864, near the town called Wolmaransstad, South Africa, on the family farm, Rietkuil, where he spent his childhood. Like most children of his day, he grew up in difficult and turbulent times. At the age of 7, he started his schooling that lasted a mere 20 days; his father needed his help on their farm. From that time, he never had any formal education again.

From a tender age, he was perceived to be "different," timid and reserved and never taking part in the mischievous pranks of other boys his age. Nor did he have any real interest in farming. He mostly enjoyed listening to his mother reading to him from the Bible. By means of the Bible, his mother was able to teach him, with difficulty, to read the book by spelling and deciphering the words one at a time.

From that time until his death, the Bible was the only book he ever read, and he had no interest whatever to read anything else, for he believed other books or newspapers were worldly things and did not spiritually enhance a person. By only reading the Bible, over a period of 55 years, he forecast what would happen worldwide in the future.

His mother, Anna Catharina van Rensburg, was a quiet, sensitive, soft-spoken woman who suffered from poor health. Nicolaas did not only take after his mother in character, but he also inherited her frailty. This was the main reason why there was such a strong bond between them until her death.

Just like his mother, he disliked violence to such an extent that he could not even stand seeing an animal being slaughtered. It is an enigma, therefore, that he joined the Boer forces during both wars and stayed until the end, even though he foresaw the disastrous outcome. He is also the only soldier in Boer history who never shot at or killed any of his enemies – he never carried a gun.

When he was still a toddler, his mother noticed that her son could "see" things, but he was then still too young to grasp and understand what was happening to him. His mother believed that if this gift was from God, her son would understand at a later stage. Even though she had always wondered how great this gift was that her son had received and asked him many times what he was seeing that made him so unhappy, he only stood staring at her with his deep penetrating blue eyes and would never utter a word. The look in his eyes was such that she wanted to take him to her and hug him.

Many people have said that his eyes put fear into them, and they did not want to look into them. Others said that they have never seen such sad eyes. It was as though he looked at people from an infinite depth and saw through them, as if he saw something far away that brought the sadness to his eyes.

How heavily this burden of prophet or seer rested on his shoulders, nobody would know, but at the age of 20, he had already started greying and was chosen as an elder in his church the following year. At 30, neighboring farmers older than he called him "Oom Niklaas." "Oom" translates to "uncle" in English and is widely used among Afrikaners as a sign of respect for somebody older than oneself.

Many may wonder just how well-known van Rensburg's prophecies are in both the English and Afrikaans languages. "In 1916, van Rensburg had a vision that toward the end of the century, the Afrikaners/Boers, his people, would become more and more interested in his visions," Snyman said. "At that time, he told a very good friend of his, Mr. Boy Mussmann, who lived in Vryburg, the following: 'There will come a time when I will be much in the news again. At that time, I saw that we as a nation were still arguing amongst one another, and then suddenly we had a black government. Then only will the Afrikaners' most bitter struggle begin. ... I see a time when the whole world will be plowed under. Then I saw a snake lying on the plowed land. I could not see its head or tail.'" This is the beginning of World War III, when everything will be in disorder and confusion will reign.

On Dec. 12, 1917, van Rensburg saw a large tank coming from the north of Africa. Fine sheep droppings rolled out from it. Snyman believes that this might be sexually transmitted diseases. The tank rolled south and the world changed into a dung yard.

A vision of van Rensburg on the 30th of March, 1918, links up with this one: A little old black man sits dressed in women's clothing (he is homosexual) and dung rolls off him on the western side. (He is not only afflicted with this disease, but spreads it among the Western nations.) Van Rensburg then told his friend, Boy Mussmann, that 'many millions will die of this terrible disease.'

In a vision about Afrikaner freedom, van Rensburg said, "There will be more treason, more abuse, yes, I see more division and more flowing of blood than during the Rebellion." (During the 1914 Rebellion, the Boers took up arms and sided with Germany.) This is not just our blood, but I also see an unbelievable miracle happening. When I saw this miracle, I knew only then that the struggle of my people (for freedom and a free country, a republic of their own) will be over, and then it will be the end of the time of my visions. ..."

The second part of that vision, in van Rensburg's words, says, "We are going to have more trouble with the blacks, for years ago, shortly after the War, I saw a small black person rising halfway out of the earth. Then I had another vision. I saw he had grown into a mighty warrior who now appeared fully out of the earth, and the shadow of the spear and shield he held above his head fell right across the land. This is far in the future. Then he disappears into fog. But before that time, I also saw darkness descending down over the land. My advice is, fight, even if you do so with your backs to the wall!"

Famed seer's predictions gain unprecedented attention

2006-11-22T20:19:00.000+02:00

As seers and prophets go, Nicolaas van Rensburg, a white South African who lived a century ago, has what is considered a fairly accurate track record, and residents of this embattled nation now are looking to his predictions as the key to their future.

"The prophet spoken of in hushed tones by the ANC, but with admiration by white South Africans, is none other than Seer van Rensburg," says South African scholar and historian Adriaan Snyman, likely the man who best understands van Rensburg's work and its implications for South Africa. Snyman's story and his dedicated quest to understand van Rensburg's work is a long and captivating account. He was born in Lichtenburg, situated in the old West Transvaal, South Africa, close to Ottosdal, where Seer Nicolaas van Rensburg resided on his farm. On completion of his schooling, he went to work for the Department of Education in Pretoria and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. Shortly thereafter, he became a journalist and worked for two Afrikaans newspapers, the Hoofstad in Pretoria and the Burger in Cape Town.

In an interview with WorldNetDaily, Snyman related how his interest in van Rensburg began.

"Years ago, at about 5 o'clock one autumn morning, I was sitting in my cane chair reading 1 Samuel, chapter 9. Saul and his servant were looking for his father's asses that had been lost. They found nothing, and when Saul wanted to go back, his servant advised him that they should consult a man of God."

Snyman described this verse as God saying the following to Saul: "Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man, all that he saith cometh surely to pass; now let us go thither; peradventure he can show us our way that we should go."

"Something happened to me at that moment; A shudder went through me, a light flashed through my head, and as I stood up I spoke aloud to myself: 'Have we not had our man of God and seer?' Vague memories came to mind, and for a fleeting moment I saw myself in the countryside at Lichtenburg where my father was busy telling my brothers, sister and me about Seer van Rensburg, who always went to a hill behind his house during the day to read his Bible and pray. 'And there God spoke to him,' I heard my father say," Snyman said. "This was what I could remember."

Snyman said it was then that he "started searching, but just like Saul's asses, Seer van Rensburg was lost to me. Then one morning at a place called Eloffsdal, Pretoria, he appeared before me in the form of old Mr. Paul Prinsloo, an 82-year-old 'disciple' and a person who knew all about Seer van Rensburg – a man who, even at that age, had bright and clear eyes. And for the first time since my childhood, I heard the following words: 'Seer van Rensburg said …' And from that time on, I met various other people who knew about the Boer Prophet and what he had said. Then information began coming to me like a flood. Today, I know without doubt – we had our own seer!"

Since its publication in 1995, the book "Boodskapper van God" about van Rensburg has become a national best seller in Afrikaans, running through eight editions with nearly 50,000 copies sold, and it is still on the local best-sellers list. Snyman's own work, the English translation "Voice of a Prophet," is now in its second printing. The SABC made a documentary about the Seer in 1999, and it was televised no less than three times within as many weeks.

Says Snyman, "Van Rensburg's visions are so well-known by his people that they are regularly discussed in Parliament, and some years back a prominent MP flew off the handle and [the scene] ended in a brawl with a member of the opposition."

Snyman told WorldNetDaily that during a parliamentary discussion in January 1991, a Conservative MP mentioned a vision of Seer van Rensburg regarding a diamond the size of a sheep's head that still lay undiscovered in the Western Transvaal diamond fields. Since then, diamond prospectors have been searching for this hidden sheep's head-size diamond and constantly inquire as to when and where the diamond will be found.

Asked how ANC and South African Communist Party supporters feel about van Rensburg's prophecies, Snyman was resolute.

"I don't think they like what he said, because he not only predicted that thousands of blacks in Africa would die of hunger or a terrible sickness – perhaps, sadly, AIDS or Ebola – but also that one day the Afrikaner will take back his land and freedom," he said.

Snyman said that he has been threatened by unknown parties about his work concerning van Rensburg.

"Since my wife, Annelize, and I started publishing the old seer's visions in 1991, we have been intimidated in many ways. Someone will phone us at 2 o'clock in the morning and say, 'The first person leaving your house tomorrow morning will be shot!' Then he'll hang up," he said.

"Last year, I went on a nation-wide tour to inform my people about the seer's predictions for the near future and warn them of a blood-bath that will follow the death of a prominent black man. Some party or parties tried to stop me by phoning my wife and telling her she would receive me back with a bullet in the head. Nevertheless, I finished my tour, visiting 64 towns and cities and speaking to about 30,000 people. At some of these meetings there were more English-speaking people than Afrikaners."

Asked what the seer might say about South Africa if he were alive today, Snyman said, "Like ex-President P.W. Botha, he would have refused to appear before Bishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

"I say this because shortly before his death in 1926, van Rensburg himself said, 'Our nation will become free; I see them trekking inland where they congregate in a large mass; I see some going west, where they will fight and revolution breaking out among them, but everything will happen without any blood being shed. On the past of our nation, and on the present, there is no stigma; hope in the future and aim for the best you can achieve.'"

Concerning van Rensburg's alleged unfinished manuscripts, Snyman told WorldNetDaily, "There are no unfinished manuscripts, only the two books containing his visions, as written down by Anna, his daughter, and they were nowhere to be found when I started my research in 1990. Even his surviving family did not know where they were."

Snyman says that according to an article in the Sunday newspaper Rapport in 1981, these books disappeared after the death of his daughter and could not be found.

"Therefore, I believe it was an act of divine providence that I finally traced the books in the archives of the Lichtenburg Museum in 1991," he said.

"When reading these visions, one realizes that the symbols and metaphors may contain the keys to things we do not yet understand in our times. In about 700 visions, the history of Nicolaas van Rensburg's people, the Afrikaner, is sketched over a period of 100 years, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle."

As for what the future holds for South Africa, Snyman said, "only Seer van Rensburg holds the key."

Khosa October, a black ANC activist in Cape Town, told WorldNetDaily: "I don't know if the prophecies of van Rensburg are true, but they sure give me the creeps. Apartheid was wrong, yes. The ANC has become so corrupt and the world has changed so much since Mandela was released from jail. Perhaps it is not beyond imagination, when one considers AIDS, that the whites will rule South Africa again."

Boerevolk seek status as a nation

2006-11-21T00:06:00.000+02:00

Dr Johan (Lets) Pretorius led members of the Boerevolk organisation to the Union Buildings at the weekend to demand recognition from the presidency.

Men, women and children on horseback and dressed in Voortrekker attire joined several others on trucks and bakkies.

Brandishing flags - including the Vierkleur and other former Boer Republic flags - they gathered at the Tshwane Events Centre before marching to the Union Buildings.

Posters saying "Enough is Enough" and "The Vierkleur will fly again" were also on the vehicles.

In a memorandum handed to Director-General of Land Affairs, Glynn Thomas, the Boerevolk demanded a moratorium be placed on any expropriation of land the Boerevolk may have a claim to until a final decision on the Boerevolk's independence has been reached. The complete independence claim of the Boerevolk is contained in their Majuba Declaration.

Pretorius said it was imperative the Boerevolk be politically defined as a nation.

Afrikaner Homeland as Evolving Symbol

2006-11-15T22:15:00.000+02:00

Self-governing states

2006-11-15T22:04:00.000+02:00

APARTHEID HOMELANDS or SELF-GOVERNING STATES

In South Africa it was called a "Crime Against Humanity."

In Israel it is called a "Roadmap to Peace."

ARE YOU CONFUSED?

Then read this.

In a clear victory for the much-maligned policy of apartheid, both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas, alias Abu Mazen, have pledged their support for the so-called road map to peace at the recent Jordan summit with US President George W Bush, which, in essence, is the vision of two ethnically pure states existing side by side, without the one ruling over the other. The leaders committed themselves to a possible peace deal with the inevitable give-and-take of classical apartheid: Sharon agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian homeland, while Abu Mzen, by implication, agreed to the concept of Israel being an exclusively Jewish homeland. Abu Mazen won the creation of a truly independent and free Palestinian state within a definite time-frame, - while Sharon was able to point out in his speech that an own Palestinian state for the Palestinians will in turn guarantee the maintenance of a 'Jewish Israel'.

Though none of the two leaders mentioned the word apartheid by name, analysts have described the historic agreement as the type of ‘grand apartheid' envisaged by the former South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, who was assassinated before he could fully implement it in South Africa. This left his successors to water it down and eventually capitulate altogether, dumping South Africa in the same morass Black Africa has been wallowing in since uhuru.

The Volkstaat map of the AWB

2006-11-15T21:53:00.000+02:00

This Volkstaat map was published by the AWB way back when. It is historically the most correct, but it has a problem. A great may people of of Tswana, Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, etc. extraction live there today and they are not keen on moving...

Learning to Let Go

2006-11-15T21:39:00.000+02:00

Another misbegotten point of view from overeas...

Most Afrikaners have come to terms with black empowerment, but a troubled minority still clings to the past
By SIMON ROBINSON
Posted Sunday, April 11, 2004; 2.15BST
Radio Pretoria is haunted by the ghosts of apartheid past. Paintings of dead white South African Presidents stare down from the walls; the old blue, white and orange national flag, which once flew over half of southern Africa, still hangs in the main corridor of the station; and every morning at 5 a.m. the station broadcasts the apartheid-era anthem Die Stem (The Call). "It's not so long ago that an American Negro said, 'I have a dream,'" says manager Jaap Diedericks, sitting beneath a painting of the 1838 Battle of Blood River, in which a few hundred Boer Afrikaners overwhelmed more than 10,000 Zulus. "We Afrikaners have a dream, too: a dream of self-sufficiency." For many of Radio Pretoria's 130,000 listeners, descendants of 17th and 18th century Dutch and French Huguenot and German Protestant migrants, shows like Gray Power provide comfort in a world of change and remind older listeners in particular of a bygone age when Afrikaners ruled and, says Diedericks, "standards were maintained." The African National Congress wants "to create one nice big rainbow nation, which to us is completely unacceptable," Diedericks says.
The Afrikaner nation was never the monolith it appeared, but the end of apartheid splintered it even more. Unlike the average Radio Pretoria listener, for example, many younger Afrikaners — and the heads of most big Afrikaner companies — welcome the new order. Afrikaner insurance firms and banks were among the first to sell stakes to black investors. "It's typical of businesspeople to be pragmatic," says Jacob de Villiers, CEO of the Afrikaans Chamber of Commerce. "This country is not going to build itself. Let's stop sitting around thinking about the way it was or the way it could have been and get to work."
But on a personal level many Afrikaners are less confident. Lawyer Neil de Villiers was born into a family of staunch apartheid supporters, but turned against the system after six months' compulsory military service in Angola, where he grew disillusioned with the apartheid leaders and their philosophies. The 1994 elections "were a liberation for us as well," he says. He and his wife embraced the changes and have stayed in South Africa even as friends emigrated. But he worries that his two sons will find it hard to get work. "The reality is, if they don't get opportunities here they will move on," he says. "And that's very sad."
Judging by support for political parties, most Afrikaners now reject the idea of a separate white nation, but a significant minority still dream of an autonomous Afrikaner volkstaat (homeland). "People believed that the [pre-1994] negotiations staved off a revolution," says novelist and commentator Dan Roodt. "But in fact it was just the beginning of a long, slow revolution, a relentless attack on white rights." Some worry that such frustration could lead to violence. Two years ago, police thwarted an improbable coup plot by a small right-wing group called the Boeremag (Farmer's Force). The Boeremag planned to bomb targets in Soweto, blow up the South African Broadcasting Corporation building in Johannesburg, and chase millions of black South Africans into Zimbabwe. "I sympathize with [the Boeremag's ] frustration but not its approach," says Radio Pretoria's Diedericks. "I didn't want change and our listeners didn't want change. But it's the reality and so we accept it. If you don't accept realities in Africa, you die."

The story of the AWB

2006-11-15T21:31:00.000+02:00

CHAPTER 9 - THE VOLKSTAAT

While the Volkstaat concept - that is, a nation state which is ethnically uniform, consisting only of Afrikaners - was always part of AWB philosophy from that organisation's beginning, the proposed boundaries of such a state have changed considerably since the idea was first mooted.

Like the HNP from whence it sprang, the AWB originally viewed the entire country as "white man's land" - except of course for the already existing Black homelands, which had been given official status by the grand apartheid policy. The reasoning then was that the only further concession which could be made was to give the Cape Coloured population a homeland as well - if they wanted it. This was original HNP policy and was for a while punted by the Conservative Party as well.

Against that background, Terre'Blanche explained the original AWB policy in 1982 as one of the granting of a homeland to the Coloureds in the Western Cape and the recognition of the existing Black homelands inside South Africa with the chance of them being granted slightly more land. Blacks finding themselves in the Volkstaat would have their political rights restricted to their own states.

The Indians, however, could have no claim to land. "They would be lucky to remain in South Africa. They are not White. They are not Christians. They have a different culture, tradition and language. They are exploiting South Africa economically. Do you expect us to carve up a piece of land in Natal for this purpose - Voortrekker land?" asked Terre'Blanche.

The policy of regarding the entire country as a Volkstaat was only finally dropped in 1985, after a leading campaigner for the Afrikaans language and for the restoration of the pre-Boer war independent republics, Robert van Tonder, became involved with the AWB.

Van Tonder, the founder of the town of Randburg and a self made millionaire, had long been running what was virtually a one man show calling for the restoration of the Boer republics divided from the rest of the country. He had in fact left the National Party as early as 1961 in order to pursue this idea.

His seminal book on the subject, "Boer State" laid the basic idea. Van Tonder also occasionally produced a newspaper "Die Stem" which he agreed to give the AWB on a split costs basis. "Die Stem" became the official organ of the AWB until December 1986 when Van Tonder left the AWB in a clash over whether to turn to active parliamentary politics or not.

During the time that "Die Stem" was the official mouthpiece of the AWB, however, Van Tonder (who was editor) managed to implant the idea of the restoration of the Boer republics in AWB supporters.

Thus it was in May 1985 that Terre'Blanche himself first announced at a public meeting in Nelspruit in the Transvaal that the AWB was now looking for only the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and Northern Natal to be the Boer fatherland. The Cape and Southern Natal was for the first time specifically excluded.

Above: The "Boer State" concept which was proposed by Robert Van Tonder. This eventually became the official policy of the AWB, as can be seen from the front page of the AWB's official newsletter "Sweepslag" in 1984.

When the Boer Republic idea began to draw more supporters as a result of his association with the AWB, Van Tonder started a "Boer State Committee" which was a body consisting of some senior Afrikaans academics (such as educationist Professor Alkmaar Swart who later became chairman of the AWB's Great Council as well) who had been taken with the concept.

Another group with basically the same idea called the "Transvaal Separatists" then started up under the leader ship of a Doctor Piet Cloete from Naboomspruit. A pamphlet issued by Cloete at the May 31 1986 right wing gathering at the Voortrekker Monument, calling for Boer State candidates to oppose the Conservative Party at the next general election, caused considerable concern in the ranks of the CP, and was wrongly attributed to the AWB by the National Party. Van Tonder himself was all for direct action, and eventually clashed with Terre'Blanche over the latter's refusal to enter into active parliamentary politics in 1986.

"If we cannot come to an agreement with the Conservative Party (to work for the re-establishment of the Boer states) then we must found a new party," Van Tonder told Jan Groenewald at the time.

"In this manner Van Tonder said in 1986 that the CP should give ten seats to the AWB, and that Terre'Blanche himself should stand in Krugersdorp," said Groenewald, former deputy leader of the AWB.

"The idea was for both myself and professor Alkmaar Swart (Chairman of the AWB's Great Council) to get seats as well. Both Swart and I said we were not interested."

At the end of 1986 Van Tonder left the AWB in despair and started the Boerestaat Party, which although has never taken part in any elections, was able to attract one or two key AWB figures such as Piet Rudolph to its ranks.

The Boer State idea is a mixture of historical claims and the Volkstaat non-political party ideology as originally propounded by the AWB.

An anonymous pamphlet on the issued in 1987 detailed the reasoning behind the whole concept. Entitled "Our Own Land" the pamphlet went into the historical reasoning behind the restoration of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Republics along with the Northern Natal section, known as "Vryheid" (Freedom) in Boer history.

Pointing out that the problem should be approached rather from a nationalistic point of view than race, the pamphlet said that the problem in a unitary state in South Africa would be one of competing nationalisms. The only way to prevent such a clash would be to give each nationalism a geographic area, the argument ran.

The claim to the territory is based on historical grounds, maintains the AWB proponents of a "Volks state." This is so because when the Great Trek occurred in South Africa, the trekkers did not steal any land from the native Black population, but only occupied land which was previously unoccupied - and which was so mainly as a result of the Black tribes having decimated each other during a huge inter-tribal war called the "Difaquane" prior to the trekkers settling in the interior of the country.

The "Volks state" pamphlet takes up the story of how the interior was opened up: "As a result of the Difaquane, the trekkers found a largely deserted and ravaged land as they moved north, and their diaries are full of descriptions of scenes of burnt out Black kraals with bleached bones lying in the sun, silent evidence to the Black on Black war which had taken place several years previously and which had so deserted the land that no-one was even left to bury the dead.

A volkstaat scenario for Iraq

2006-11-12T22:36:00.000+02:00

It is taking the Americans a very long time to figure out that trying to build a nation of three etnic groups who hate each other is a bad idea. Finally, the obvious answer gets some publicity in Time magazine. If this idea flies, will it mean that the idea of a Volkstaat in South Africa gets the attention it deserves? Watch this space.

The Case For Dividing Iraq
With the country descending into civil war, a noted diplomat and author argues why partition may be the U.S.'s only exit strategy.
By PETER W. GALBRAITH
Posted Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006
Iraq is broken.
Iraq's national-unity government is not united and does not govern. Iraqi security forces, the centerpiece of the U.S.'s efforts for stability, are ineffective or, even worse, combatants in the country's escalating civil war. President George W. Bush says the U.S.'s goal is a unified and democratic Iraq, but we have no way to get there. As Americans search for answers, there is one obvious alternative: split Iraq into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'ite states.
The case for the partition of Iraq is straightforward: It has already happened. The Kurds, a non-Arab people who live in the country's north, enjoy the independence they long dreamed about. The Iraqi flag does not fly in Kurdistan, which has a democratically elected government and its own army. In southern Iraq, Shi'ite religious parties have carved out theocratic fiefdoms, using militias that now number in the tens of thousands to enforce an Iranian-style Islamic rule. To the west, Iraq's Sunni provinces have become chaotic no-go zones, with Islamic insurgents controlling Anbar province while Baathists and Islamic radicals operate barely below the surface in Salahaddin and Nineveh. And Baghdad, the heart of Iraq, is now partitioned between the Shi'ite east and the Sunni west. The Mahdi Army, the most radical of the Shi'ite militias, controls almost all the Shi'ite neighborhoods, and al-Qaeda has a large role in Sunni areas. Once a melting pot, Baghdad has become the front line of Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite war, which is claiming at least 100 lives every day.
Most Iraqis do not want civil war. But they have rejected the idea of a unified Iraq. In the December 2005 national elections, Shi'ites voted overwhelmingly for Shi'ite religious parties, Sunni Arabs for Sunni religious or nationalist parties, and the Kurds for Kurdish nationalist parties. Fewer than 10% of Iraq's Arabs crossed sectarian lines. The Kurds voted 98.7% for independence in a nonbinding referendum.
Iraq's new constitution, approved by 80% of Iraq's voters, is a road map to partition. The constitution allows Iraq's three main groups to establish powerful regions, each with its own government, substantial control over the oil resources in its territory and even its own regional army. Regional law supersedes federal law on almost all matters. The central government is so powerless that, under the constitution, it cannot even impose a tax.
American leaders seem to be in denial about these facts. President Bush continually asserts that the Iraqi people have voted for unity, while Condoleezza Rice once told me how impressed she was by the commitment of the Iraqi Kurds to building a new Iraq. James A. Baker III, co-chairman of a congressionally mandated commission tasked with formulating new policy options, has ruled out the idea of dividing Iraq. The most prominent American politician to endorse anything resembling partition is Senator Joseph Biden, who, along with former Council on Foreign Relations president Leslie Gelb, proposes dividing Iraq into three regions while maintaining a "central government in charge of common interests."

Sam Shilowa on the Volkstaat

2006-11-09T23:12:00.000+02:00

ADDRESS OF THE PREMIER OF GAUTENG, MBHAZIMA SHILOWA, AT THE AFRIKAANSE SAKEKAMER

15 October 1999

Chairman of the Pretoria Afrikaanse Sakekamer , Mr. Tertius Zitzke, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and gentlemen

Goeienaand

I thank you for inviting me to be with you this evening. It is indeed an honour for me to be given this platform to say a few words on this august occasion.

Perhaps I should begin by asking the question: what is a nation? This question is relevant because from time to time we hear politicians and ordinary people talk of building a united South African nation. Do we all have the same conception of this united S outh African nation? Are we all agreed about the character of this nation?

To the extent that we are a people that share a common territory and are governed by one government, there is no doubt that South Africa is a nation.

There are, however, many in this community who feel that because we are a people with such diverse cultures, speaking different languages and honouring different traditions and religions, we should therefore be separated and build a nation divided into many ethnic groups. This notion is particularly repeated by some in the Afrikaner community, at least by those who advocate a crude idea for an Afrikaner Volkstaat.

During the time of the negotiations and for years thereafter it became quite evident that the notion of a separated nation of different ethnic groups is not a popular option. The constitution of the Republic of South Africa recognises the rights of all Sou th Africans, protecting their religion, culture and language. It is this constitution, which has been embraced by all South Africans, which invalidates the arguments for a divided nation.

We are therefore a nation of a diverse people. We are bound by our jealous love for this beautiful country, rich with natural resources and flowered with an attractive landscape. We are a people driven by the desire to unite one another so that together we can build a successful nation. We share the common determination to reconcile from our brutal past in order to combine our energies and experiences towards creating a better life for all.

Having arrived at this point, about what sort of nation we are, I think it is proper to then tackle the issue of what the Afrikaanse Sakekamer is about. I have no shame to define you as a group of people who share the noble idea of building a united nation . I am convinced that all of you feel equally obliged to creating better living conditions for the people of our country. I am sure there is no one within your midst who regrets being African. You are, like the rest of us, true sons of our continent, Africa.

There are major challenges which your organisation ought to acknowledge and respond to. The social, economic and political developments in our country today dictate that your organisation should begin to play a broader role, further from that of catering f or the Afrikaner community. As part of this nation, we expect of you to be worried by the increasing number of people who are unemployed, to feel brotherly about the lot in our country who do not have a shelter over their heads, who lack educational qualif ications and many who are trapped in abject poverty. We call upon you to help us redress these imbalances, which threaten our dreams of a nation with equal opportunities.

As business people, I would like to invite you to join hands with us to build the economy of this country, and our province in particular. Your experiences and skills, accumulated over years of hard work, could be transferred to thousands of people who are also trying hard to create employment for themselves. I refer here to the emerging black entrepreneurs who have set up enterprises, which have grown tremendously over the past few years. The impact that these initiatives have on our economy and the creat ion of employment is unquestionable.

Bizarre blog

2006-11-09T22:59:00.000+02:00

I have come across a site billed as "Donna's blog about Volkstaat." It seems to have been constructed with the sole purpose of getting the attention of search engines, in order to lead the unwary surfer to their own nefarious sites. They have succeeded, they come up at number 590 in a Yahoo search for Volkstaat!

volkstaat

Thursday, November 09, 2006
Interested in volkstaat?

Together with my brother we have collected the top 10 sites that 
give information about volkstaat. The first site is really cool 
you have to visit it!
South africa police in the Free Online Encyclopedia

- Check Free Online Encyclopedia for information about south africa police

posted by Donna at 2006 Sep 30 00:40 4 comments  

4 Comments:

Helen said...

    The best sites on the Internet :)
    2006 Oct 13 08:16   

Donna said...

    Good blog
    2006 Oct 11 20:20   

Kenneth said...

    I like your comments, great links
    2006 Oct 11 14:28   

John said...

    Good blog

The rest is gibberish that contains the words "South Africa" many, many times.

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The top 10 sites for volkstaat are claimed to be

    * vauen
    * whab
    * bungie executive office chair by euro style furniture
    * 3005
    * chicago cubs ticket broker
    * chicago bulls jersey
    * centerville
    * adidas clima proof vest medium
    * jewellry
    * alternate
    * milonta

Thabo Mbeki on the volkstaat

2006-11-09T22:52:00.000+02:00

CITY PRESS

4 APRIL 2004

In the quest for power in KwaZulu-Natal, the battlelines have been drawn alike between the main adversaries, the ANC and IFP, and their leaders, ANC president Thabo Mbeki (left) and IFP

Can ANC beat IFP in KwaZulu-Natal?

In one of his most strongly worded utterances to date on the IFP leader, Mbeki last week labelled Buthelezi a right-winger.

This has not gone down well with the IFP leader and his DA counterpart, who want the election to be fought on ideas and governmental track record and not on what they term labelling. For Mbeki and the ANC in the province, however, people must not lose sight of what the DA and IFP coalition represents. Mbeki recently reminded the electorate on his party website about the role of the IFP on the eve of the first democratic election in 1994 as the country was putting together the final touches for a nonracial democracy .

"In 1992, as our country was engaged in negotiations to end apartheid rule, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) joined the Conservative Party led by Ferdie Hartzenberg, the Bophuthatswana and Ciskei Bantustans of Lucas Mangope and Oupa Gqozo, and other right-wing Afrikaner groups to form an alliance that called itself the Concerned South Africans Group (Cosag).

"The aim of Cosag was to derail the process of negotiations and impose a settlement on the country that would result, among other things, in an independent 'Kingdom of KwaZulu-Natal' and an Afrikaner volkstaat. If necessary, this grouping was ready to resort to force to impose its will on the country. This it tried to do when it attempted a disastrous armed insurrection in the then Mmabatho, in Bophuthatswana.

"The IFP later featured in another alliance of a similar kind, the Freedom Alliance formed in October 1993. In addition to the groups that constituted Cosag were now added the KwaZulu 'homeland' and the Afrikaner Volksfront, described by former president F W de Klerk as a coalition of 21 conservative Afrikaans groups."

Mbeki suggests that the IFP decision to form an alliance with the DA does not differ much from the same alliance it formed prior to the country's first democratic election in order to ensure that KwaZulu continues as a separate enclave from the rest of South Africa. He suggests this is the true intention of the DA and IFP alliance.

For his part, Buthelezi was aggrieved at Mbeki's approach in this election, saying he believed the president was continuing to play an ideological card. Responding to Mbeki's attack, Buthelezi said he was "flabbergasted that while I am campaigning, talking about real issues which affect all South Africans, the response I get from the president is one which deals with ideology. This is not time for ideology."

Buthelezi has already pointed out that his party too needs an outright win in the province. He knows that anything less could herald the beginning of the end for the IFP. He believes a convincing victory for the party would allow it to carry out its mandate and not be subjected to making compromises with the provincial ANC.

He has pointed to several limitations his party has had to endure while being in a coalition with the ANC. He recently told a gathering in Durban that "the circumstances in which we have had to work has meant that the IFP was unable to fully implement (its) programme for government".

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's afrocentric justice

2006-11-09T22:42:00.000+02:00

The preparation of the first general and non-racial elections did not happen without tension which also affected the black parties themselves, especially the relation between the ANC and the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party.

The TRC has dealt with those cases including the many violent acts committed particularly during that preparatory period, both by blacks and whites.

'General' Nico Prinsloo, member of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), testified, among others, to the violence aimed at enforcing the creation of a Volkstaat - an independent Afrikaans state. Twenty people were killed in a bomb attack and many others were injured. The TRC was particularly interested in who had ordered the attack and had directed it. Other Afrikaaner participants also testified to this terrorist act and they even gave the names of those responsible for it. The courts had already previously condemned several of the offenders guilty of this crime, the perpetrators and organisers of which were currently not being granted an amnesty by the Commission since it did not consider these testimonies to be complete and truthful. Therefore, the verdicts were not abolished (Amnesty Decisions: No. 1004/96).

However, the case of C.J.Lottering was of a differnt nature. This man had shot a black taxi driver only to prove that he was ready to fulfill every single order that he was called upon to fulfill by the leaders of the extremist Order of Death, a white organisation of which he was a member. Mr. Lottering was sentenced on charges of murder, theft and his subsequent escape from confinement. The TRC amnestied him only for his escape from prison. The corresponding number of years in detention was thus shortened respectively.

Until now, the ratio of the total number of amnestied persons has amounted to one white person versus three blacks.

In 1993, one must mention the amnesty of three black youngsters who had stoned to death the American scholarship student Amy Biehl in the black township of Gugulethu near Cape Town caused a great stir. Amy was on her way to the township by car at a time when various young people in a highly excited state were on their way home following a stormy meeting of the Pan-African Student Union whose participants were chanting what was a very popular slogan: 'One settler, one bullet'. Two out of four killers were university students. Everyone of them had been amnestied because in the Commission?s view their act had been perpetrated due the 'spirit of the times' and had therefore been 'under the direct influence of the corresponding agitation of their political organisation'. Consequently they were released from prison.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's findings on the Volkstaat supporters

2006-11-09T22:26:00.000+02:00

Volume SIX Section FIVE Chapter SIX

Holding the Right-Wing Groups Accountable

INTRODUCTION

1. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the Commission) made findings against right-wing opposition groups in its Final Report. These findings were based on the evidence and testimony it received. This included speeches that had been made by senior leaders inciting followers to commit acts of violence against those labelled ‘the enemy’, the arming of supporters in contravention of the law, and random racist attacks on black civilians.

2. The Commission noted that an important aspect of the insurrection was the clandestine collusion between right-wing forces, members of the security forces and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). This led to the commission of gross human rights violations and the training of IFP paramilitary forces in the hope of preventing the ANC from coming to power.

3. In addition, particularly in the period leading to the holding of the first democratic elections, right-wing supporters embarked on a campaign to destabilise the country and to prevent the holding of elections. The storming of the World Trade Centre and the assistance rendered to the Bophuthatswana homeland by the right wing are examples of this. In terms of the leadership of the right wing, the Commission specifically held Generals Constand Viljoen and Peter Groenewald and Mr Eugene Terre’Blanche accountable for the reign of terror carried out by the various groups and their individual supporters.

4. At the time when the Commission made its findings on the right wing, a number of right-wing amnesty applications had already been heard. However, the Commission decided that findings would be revisited once all decisions of the Amnesty Committee became available.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

5. The Commission stated in its Final Report:

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, a number of Afrikaner right-wing groups became active in the political arena. They operated in a loose coalition intent on securing the political interests of conservative Afrikaners through a range of activities seemingly intent on disrupting the negotiations process then underway. Operating both within and outside the negotiations process, members of these groups undertook actions which constituted gross violations of human rights.

6. Specifically:

The Commission finds that the Afrikaner Volksfront and structures operating under its broad umbrella were responsible, between April 1993 and May 1994, for gross violations of human rights of persons perceived to be supporters and leaders of the ANC, SACP, UDF, PAC, National party and other groups perceived not to support the concept of Afrikaner self-determination or the establishment of a volkstaat, to that end, the movement’s political leaders and military generals advocated the use of violence in pursuit of the movement’s aims and/or in an attempt to mobilise for an insurrection.

Afrikaans literature in the rainbow nation

2006-11-09T22:09:00.000+02:00

At present the novel Na die geliefde land (To the beloved country) by Karel Schoeman, one of the most prominent contemporary prose writers in Afrikaans literature, is being turned into a movie in South Africa. Schoeman’s science fiction novel was published in 1972.

The events take place in a post-revolutionary South Africa. The white government has been replaced. George, the main character, grew up and still resides in Switzerland. His father was a diplomatic representative of the old regime. After the death of his mother he travels to South Africa with the intention of selling the family farm. The Hattinghs, an Afrikaner family who live near his mother's old farm, offer him accommodation. Like all Afrikaners they have to endure hardship and poverty.

During his short stay George discovers that the world of the Hattinghs is completely different from his own. He only has the Afrikaans language in common with them. As a result he remains a complete outsider. His trip, undertaken as a pilgrimage, has not instilled any sympathy for his people in him. On the contrary, George empathizes with the two children of the Hattingh family, Carla and Paultjie, who reject the values the Afrikaner community holds dear. Only they are not ridiculed. The author makes it plain that the alternative of Carla, namely to fully commit herself to the new society, offers the only hope for the future.

The other members of the Hattingh family are plotting against the new rulers. They idealise the past and want to bring about a return to the old order. However, they are fighting for a lost cause. The novel makes it plain that the Afrikaners should put their past behind them and join forces with the blacks in the building of a new South Africa.

The reactions of the reviewers when Schoeman's novel first appeared were not unanimously favourable as Henriette Roos points out: "Die bekendste kritici het die striemende uitbeelding, wat in 'n tipiese koel Schoemanstyl gedoen is, op literêre vlak probeer afkraak, waartydens hulle politieke afkeur moeilik verborge kon bly. Van dié verhaal wat lees asof dit gebaseer is op die koerantberigte van vroeg-1994, sê Botha in 1974 dat "die boek 'n verre, vae sprokiesagtigheid behou ... en dat daar geen sprake is (nie) van 'n Suid-Afrikaanse ... aktualiteit ... (V)an fantasie het die boek veel, … van profesie is daar geen sprake nie"" (Roos 1998: 68) (The most well-known critics have tried to slate the cutting depiction, which is done in a typically cool Schoeman style, during which they could scarcely hide their political antipathy. Of this plot, which reads as if it were based on newspaper stories from early 1994, Botha says in 1974 "that the book retains a distant, vague fairytale like character … South African reality is completely absent … The book is filled with fantasy … it has nothing at all to do with prophesy*).

From the vantage point of 2002 Na die geliefde land is much closer to science than to fiction. Reality has caught up with what was for most critics an all too imaginary plot. In 1972 Afrikaner power was in its heyday; its crumbling was for most white South Africans quite inconceivable. What interpretation will the film put on the novel? Will it highlight the Afrikaners' unwillingness to accept black rule or will it propagate the need for foresaking the old tribal ties and hence for forging new bonds across the colour divide?

More than twenty years later Elsa Joubert addressed the same theme in the short story ‘Volkstaat’ (White homeland) (1993). Once again the setting is an undetermined future. Most Afrikaners live in the townships near the cities where they eke out a meagre existence. Some live in an impoverished homeland. The whites have become the new underclass. They are the victims of a reverse apartheid system: they have to carry out the unskilled jobs once done by the blacks; they are subjected to the same humiliations the blacks had to undergo; their lives are a continuous struggle for survival. Joubert’s message cannot be misunderstood: do not do to others what you do not want to have done to yourself. When the Dansmaat (Dancing partner) collection, of which ‘Volkstaat’ is a part, appeared, the political transformation process was already well under way. Joubert’s short story therefore did not create the same stir as the publication of Na die geliefde land twenty years earlier.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century the momentum for political change became unstoppable. The democratic elections of 1994 were a watershed in South African history. The result of the popular vote was an overwhelming victory for the ANC and the installation of Nelson Mandela as the country’s first black president. The general election was the last stage in the liberation struggle of the black peoples. Since the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652 South African history has been characterised by interracial and intraracial conflict. Not only did whites fight blacks but blacks also fought against blacks and whites against other whites.

The Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902), the election victory of the National Party in 1948 and the 1994 general election are the three pivotal events in twentieth century South African history. All three are closely intertwined. The loss of the Anglo-Boer war was a bitter blow to the Afrikaner people. The Afrikaners reacted by developing a strategy aimed at wresting political control from the English. It resulted in the 1948 victory of the National Party and subsequently, in order to lock their hold on power, in the gradual institutionalisation of racial segregation in the apartheid system. A deeply divided society came into being. Growing polarisation, spreading disenchantment and outright revolt were the inevitable consequences. The liberation struggle ultimately led to the downfall of the National Party regime. The first democratic elections of 27 April 1994 brought the blacks equality and political power.

Politieke Limerieke

2006-11-09T21:58:00.000+02:00

ou generaal konstand viljoen
weet glad nie meer wat om te doen
   want al die gepraat
   het hom niks gebaat:
en sy Volkstaat kan hy koebaai soen!


die leliewit klomp in orania
met hulle paranoia en hulle mania
     probeer vreeslik hard
     om te leef sonder swart
al woon hulle hier in azania

Power-Sharing in South Africa: The ANC as a Consociational Party?

2006-11-09T21:37:00.000+02:00

Political scientists define a consociational state as a state which has major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, yet nonetheless manages to remain stable, due to consultation among the elites of each of its major social groups. Consociational states are often contrasted with states with majority rule.

In 1996 two important developments took place. First, the permanent constitution that was adopted that year and took effect in 1999 no longer prescribed a GNU. Second, the NP left the grand coalition cabinet. Although these changes indicate a shift away from pure consociationalism, South Africa has not become a majoritarian democracy. South Africa is still much closer to the consociational than to the majoritarian end of the scale.

First, despite the departure of the National Party, the continued presence of the IFP meant that the government remained a broad and oversized coalition. Second, even without the constitutional obligation to form a GNU, the ANC may still decide at any moment to invite opposition parties to join the government, as happened when in March 1996 President Nelson Mandela offered cabinet posts to two small parties, the Democratic Party and the Pan Africanist Congress, which among them had twelve out of the 400 assembly seats. Third, “the ANC is a strongly multi-racial and multi-ethnic party”. I will return to this point below. Fourth, even if black parties were to dominate the government and white parties were relegated to the opposition, black political power would be counterbalanced by white economic power, like the situation in Malaysia where the Malays are politically dominant but the Chinese possess countervailing economic power.

Finally, a shift to a pure type of majoritarian democracy as can or rather could be found in the United Kingdom - with plurality elections, an unwritten constitution, the absence of constitutional review, and centralized government – is simply not on the agenda. To this list, one could add the introduction of two clauses into the 1996 Constitution aimed at securing the cooperation of the Afrikaner conservatives: article 185, which envisages the establishment of a Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities; and article 235, which underwrites the right of self-determination of any community sharing a common cultural and language heritage. However, the Commission can only monitor and make recommendations and the Volkstaat Council investigating the feasibility of an Afrikaner state, lasted only three years feeding suspicions that “the ANC was probably never serious about either of these two clauses.”

From a long-forgotten website

2006-11-08T23:09:00.000+02:00

For a national movement to be successful, it must be simple, easily understood and uncomplicated. We must not get entangled in finer details of what should rightfully be ours, - that will come later, and only if and when we have sorted out the basic principle. This principle is simple: Do we accept the alien, black, communist authority as our own and do we want to remain under its heel as second-class citizens until we, too, are murdered/raped/evicted from the land of our fathers? Or do we want our own state, with our own government, civil service, police, defence force, schools and hospitals?

Remember, the most effectively paralysing propaganda, which until now has killed off every decent resistance, is the perception that there is no such thing as a Boer nation any more. That we all, though with gnashing teeth, regard ourselves as part and parcel of the so-called New South Africa. That is where the crux lies, and that is where we must start if we want to have any chance at all. Don’t now bother with borders, or whether we want a volkstaat or not, or what kind of political representation will be chosen by the new Boer Republic, or who should be our leaders, - if fought over now, this will only serve to smother the basic principle with issues which can be discussed in peace and quiet later. At the moment, we have nothing, zilch, 0,000 square millimetre. No own government, no authority whatsoever, no real representation, nothing. The Azanian can do to us whatever they like, and if we do not start working on an own state soon, they will do the same as their brothers are doing in Zimbabwe, ie chase us off our land and out of our houses without a finger being lifted in our defence anywhere in the world. The priority now should be : Get together as a NATION, prove we ARE a nation, show the world we do NOT want to be part of this sovietised multi-national concoction, and hands-up for an OWN state, where we, as whites, as Boers, can determine our own and our children’s future ourselves. This is our RIGHT, - but this right, which we can argue right up to the highest court in the world, will only be realised if and when we make the time and opportunity to literally stand up and be counted, - as Boers. Only thereafter will things fall into place.

AWB saved the day

2006-11-08T22:58:00.000+02:00

An obstacle to an inclusive election in 1994 was the white right. This was a diverse group, consisting of a variety of Afrikaner political and cultural groups with a variety of views. Some, such as the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), were fascists opposed to any sort of change in the prevailing order. Another important group, the Afrikaner Volksfront , was a political organization that had been formed by Constand Viljoen and other former generals in May 1993 and sought merely the establishment of an Afrikaner homeland. The AWB and Volksfront maintained a tenuous alliance with Buthelezi’s IFP and leaders of several apartheidera African homelands. That alliance was only broken up following the “Battle of Bop” in early March 1994.

This “battle” was between Lucas Mangope, black leader of the Bophuthatswana homeland and opponent of the elections, the people of Bophuthswana who wanted to take part in the election, and the homeland’s civil servants who feared for their pensions. When the people rose up against Mangope, Viljoen decided to come to his aid. The AWB rushed in, too, and its participation turned the intervention into a fiasco. Racist and ill-disciplined, AWB men traveled throughout the homeland’s capital city shouting abuse and killing and wounding some of its residents before deciding to depart. The last vehicle of its convoy was fired on, the driver shot, and the passengers begged for medical help. Instead, in front of television cameras, they were shot by angry Bophuthatswana military men.

South Africans were horrified and any threatened military option disappeared. Thus, the AWB’s intervention, unwanted by either Mangope and Viljoen, might be considered fortuitous. Equally miraculous was the timing. The Battle of Bop culminated on March 11, 1994, the last day to register candidates for the election. Recognizing that the military option was gone, Viljoen immediately decided to register his party’s candidates, doing so only ten minutes before the deadline. As Anthony Sampson has written, “Ironically, it was the thugs of the AWB who saved the day, by discrediting the whole expedition and Mangope’s regime, along with the system that created it.”

Last-minute concessions were made to the white right but, as with the IFP, the government and ANC made repeated efforts to reach out to it and insure its participation in the elections. Negotiators had good reason to fear the white right, because radical Afrikaner nationalists had a history of resorting to arms to oppose government policy, e.g., Boer War and during World War II, and they had the potential support of a large part of the Afrikaner electorate. The March 1992 whites-only referendum, in which nearly 69 percent endorsed the negotiating process, undermined much of the right’s argument that the government was operating without popular approval. Still, the ANC sought to bring Viljoen, leader of the Afrikaner Volksfront, and others into the transition process. The general’s eventual decision to participate in the elections was “a decisive turning point,” because “not only did Viljoen’s decision take the sting out of the right-wing threat to disrupt the proceedings and launch an Afrikaner war of secession,” but he “instilled into his disbelieving right-wing supporters the acceptance that the era of Afrikaner and white rule had passed forever.”

Mandela dealt directly with Viljoen, beginning secret talks in August 1993. While the ANC had no interest in the establishment of an Afrikaner volkstaat, it continued to hold out the possibility. By December an agreement was reached pledging the two sides to non-racial democracy and to exploring the idea of Afrikaner self-determination. However, Viljoen continued to refuse to agree to participate in the elections due to continuing objections by his Freedom Alliance partners. This led some on the white right to consider achieving their goal by force of arms, a delusion that was destroyed in the Battle of Bop identified above. That failure led Viljoen to defy a majority of the Front and to agree to participate in the elections. Further concessions were then made to guarantee the participation of Viljoen’s group. His Freedom Front negotiated an accord in April 1994 with both the governing National Party and the ANC mandating the creation of a volkstaatraad after election. This body would investigate the possibility of a volkstaat in the new South Africa and report back to the governing authorities.

Interview with Freedom Front

2006-11-08T22:32:00.000+02:00

Interview With Freedom Front General-Secretary Col. Piet Uys

David Storobin, Esq. - 5/24/2005