Orania: New Afrikaner Homeland?

ORANIA, South Africa - Welcome to the new Afrikaner homeland of Orania, where the descendants of South Africa's first white settlers hope to retreat when black majority rule arrives.

There are 148 vacant houses, an empty swimming pool, a shuttered post office, a snack bar and a convenience store, all clinging precariously to 1,200 dust-blown acres in the barren northern reaches of South Africa's Cape province. Fewer than a dozen Afrikaner families have moved in so far.

But the whites who bought this rural town expect it one day will become the capital of a new nation brimming with high-tech industries, lush farms and thriving commerce. It will be a country the size of California, and only people whose skin is pure white will be allowed to live here.

"It's foolish to close your eyes to the reality of being swamped by 30 million blacks," explained Carel Boshoff, Orania's architect and the leader of a white separatist organization called the Afrikaner Freedom Foundation. "To think that the Afrikaner is going to accept this new South Africa is to expect too much."

At least four Afrikaner separatist groups have laid claim to various regions of South Africa as their historic birthright.

None of these groups agree on the boundaries of these hoped-for white states, but they invariably include major cities, gold mines and industries.

Boshoff estimated there are 100,000 to 200,000 "coloreds," or people of mixed race, and scarcely any blacks currently living inside Orania's proposed boundaries. They would, of course, have to move elsewhere. And compensation would be up to the government, he said.

In January, the Afrikaner Freedom Foundation purchased the town of Orania, which originally was built in the 1960s for workers constructing a network of dams along the nearby Orange River.

The families, who rented their tiny concrete-block houses on a month-to-month basis, departed a few weeks ago to other "colored" townships scattered around the country. Their yards are littered with broken suitcases and the forlorn pages of childrens' schoolwork left behind in the exodus.

Boshoff was unapologetic about the forced moves. "When you buy a used car," he explained, "you don't buy the car's occupants."