
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993                   TAG: 9305060276
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

S. AFRICAN WHITES UNITE TO OPPOSE BLACK RULE

Under the leadership of four retired generals, almost all of South Africa's white separatist political parties, labor unions, farm organizations and paramilitary groups have united for a last-ditch resistance to black rule.

Leaders of the group, which plans to unveil itself on Friday as the Afrikaner People's Front, demand that an Afrikaner homeland be carved from the province of Transvaal as an independent refuge for South Africans who share their language and conservative values.

Maj. Gen. Tienie Groenewald, a former chief of military intelligence and right-wing organizer, said the alliance would pursue its goals peacefully at first, demanding concessions in talks in which the government is negotiating a new political order with opposition parties.

But if that failed, he predicted, a campaign could escalate from civil disobedience to strikes to secession and armed resistance.

Attempts to unite and mobilize South Africa's fractious white nationalists have foundered over ideological differences, personality clashes and what some Afrikaners describe as the ornery individualism of their culture.

Moreover, while many Afrikaners dream of an independent Afrikaner homeland, it is not clear that many would move there, let alone fight for it.

But in interviews this week, some Afrikaners insisted that because of growing violence against whites and fears of an impending African National Congress takeover, this time will be different.

What sets this effort apart, they said, is the new prominence of the retired generals, especially Gen. Constand Viljoen, the chief of the South African Defense Force from 1980 to 1985, who is revered by many whites for his swashbuckling leadership of front-line troops against Cuban soldiers in Angola.

Viljoen, who had previously resisted efforts to enlist him in right-wing politics, said Wednesday that he decided to join the front because it was clear that President F.W. de Klerk was on the verge of handing over South Africa to people he regards as Marxists.

On Wednesday, violence among blacks left four black officers dead. Assailants surrounded a police truck in Soweto and opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles.

A caller identifying himself as a member of the militant black Azanian People's Liberation Army said his group staged the ambush, the second such claim this week.

by CNB