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- <text id=93TT1684>
- <title>
- May 17, 1993: Afrikaners, Unite!
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- May 17, 1993 Anguish over Bosnia
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 17
- WORLD
- Afrikaners, Unite!
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>South African right-wingers demand an independent white
- homeland
- </p>
- <p> The 10,000 khaki-clad Afrikaner farmers were seething.
- Demonstrating under a hot Transvaal sun in Potchefstroom last
- week, they shouted down a junior minister in President F.W. de
- Klerk's Cabinet when he rose to address them. Then they gave a
- standing ovation to retired South African Defense Force chief
- Constand Viljoen, who demanded a halt to De Klerk's negotiations
- with the African National Congress and other parties.
- </p>
- <p> The gathering was called to protest black attacks on white
- farmers and the government's failure to increase the price of
- corn. It also provided a rousing springboard for the so-called
- Committee of Generals, who the next day formally launched the
- Afrikaner Volksfront, a bid to unite more than 20 political,
- cultural and worker groups. The aim, says General P.H.
- ("Tienie") Groenewald: to win an Afrikaner state containing
- roughly 16% of South African territory, if necessary by acts of
- civil disobedience or force of arms. Says Groenewald: "What we
- will contemplate...is to declare our independence and
- secede." Despite the threat, negotiators agreed that by June a
- date would be set for the first free elections, probably to take
- place in April 1994.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-