Kleinfontein – There are no signs that say “Whites Only.”

There are, though, men in military fatigues who log the license plates of vehicles approved to enter Kleinfontein, a rural enclave that is home to about 1 000 Afrikaner whites. And there is a bust of Hendrik Verwoerd, the former South African leader who spearheaded white racist rule.

This exercise in separate, self-sufficient living near the South African capital, Pretoria, is more than just a throwback to the apartheid era that ended with the country’s first all-race elections in 1994. In recent days, Kleinfontein and its campaign to be formally recognized as a township have become a touchstone for fresh debate about law, freedom and the kind of “rainbow nation” that South Africa is trying to be.

Kleinfontein, which is all private property, requires its residents to be Afrikaners, descendants of settlers who arrived from Europe centuries ago and speak Dutch-based Afrikaans, the idiom of South Africa’s former overseers. That brings accusations of racism in a nation whose population of over 50 million is mostly black, but the community skirts race references in its manifesto. Descendants of British settlers, for example, would not be welcome to live here.

The community is not organized “on the basis of race,” said Jan Groenewald, chairman of the board of directors of Kleinfontein, which means “Little Fountain” in Afrikaans. Instead, he said, the goal is to preserve a cultural bedrock that stretches back to the lore of the hardy Voortrekker settlers.

The dig-in mindset at the austere settlement echoes that of its ancestors, who drew ox wagons into a defensive circle, a tactic that helped them defeat a much bigger Zulu force at the Dec. 16, 1838 Battle of Blood River. The date has near-mystical import for staunch Afrikaners, though the vast majority of whites accepted South Africa’s new, multi-racial order in 1994 as part of a negotiated settlement.

“We are here to stay,” read Afrikaans-language signs outside modest brick-and-tile homes linked by dirt roads in Kleinfontein.

Residents don’t pay taxes on municipal services because they don’t receive them. They draw water from a spring and are building a sewage system. There is a cafe, a primary school and a care center for the elderly. Zebra, antelope and wildebeest roam in one part of the fenced, 721-hectare (1,780-acre) property. Residents buy many of their goods from outside the fence.

“If I was a racist, we wouldn’t speak to a black. We wouldn’t do business with them,” said Annatjie Oncke, a 49-year-old house cleaner living in a caravan park. She and other poor residents do the kind of menial labor reserved for blacks in the era when whites were in charge. Kleinfontein also has engineers and other skilled workers, as well as retirees.

In the past, small bands of Afrikaners have sought to establish enclaves elsewhere in South Africa, notably in the Northern Cape community of Orania, founded in 1990. Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, traveled to Orania in 1995 and had coffee there with Verwoerd’s widow in a show of racial reconciliation. Verwoerd was assassinated in 1966.

Kleinfontein has been around almost as long as Orania, but is now under scrutiny in part because it wants local authorities to recognize it as an entity with the right to run its own affairs. The Times, a South African newspaper, reported that provincial lawmakers were informed last year that black police officers were barred from entering the enclave.

Last week, members of the Democratic Alliance, a political party, protested outside Kleinfontein.

“By creating a ‘whites-only’ area, this community is saying that it has no respect for people who are different from them. It is saying that it fears people who are different,” said Mbali Ntuli, the party’s youth leader.

On Wednesday, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, the mayor of Pretoria and surrounding areas, visited Kleinfontein as part of an inquiry into its alleged failure to comply with municipal planning laws. Delegations of the two sides met in a hall with a corrugated iron roof, a church bell mounted outside in a scaffold.

Ramokgopa noted the right of every citizen to “reside in any part of the country,” while Groenewald, Kleinfontein’s chairman, spoke of the right to “self-determination.”

The mood was diplomatic, and jovial at times. Ramokgopa joked about “koeksusters,” a fried, sugary snack favored by his Afrikaner hosts. Groenewald referred to Mandela’s leadership, but also hinted at his resolve with a mention of Koos de la Rey, a general in the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer war who did not want conflict but fought hard when it began.

South Africa’s national flag does not fly in Kleinfontein, though some residents were seen recently with the “Vierkleur” (“Four-color”), the flag of the Transvaal republic, which in the 19th century formed part of what is now South Africa. A community member handed out a declaration that complained of betrayal and persecution of the “Boer-Afrikaner nation,” and described South African democracy as a sham.

“We find ourselves exiles in our own fatherland,” the statement said. “We experience this new dispensation not as a democracy, but as the dictatorship of an alien majority.”

For some observers, any uproar over Kleinfontein masks bigger challenges about racial integration in South Africa, where average income levels of whites still outstrip those of blacks. Unemployment is high and residents of some districts have protested violently against the government’s failure to provide basic services, a fact that Kleinfontein’s leaders did not let slip in their discussions with Pretoria officials.

Author Eusebius McKaiser said the country is still wrestling with the legacy of “apartheid geography,” in which some districts originally designed for different races still remain largely segregated.

“We need to stop gloating about the anger we feel towards people like those who live in Kleinfontein,” McKaiser wrote in The Star newspaper. “They are honest and crude about their revulsion of people who are different to themselves. We are not fundamentally different to Kleinfontein’s people. We are just less honest, more subtle.”

Ramokgopa, the mayor, toured Kleinfontein in a convoy of vehicles that kicked up dust and had residents peering at the commotion from their windows. He said the “inherent contradictions” at play over Kleinfontein would emerge elsewhere.

“The nature of the conflict in South Africa is defined by race and that’s something that we need attend to,” he said. “The next generation will still be grappling with this question.” – Sapa-AP

Johannesburg – There is a need for stability in the mining sector and in centralised bargaining processes, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Friday.

“That normality must be brought by parties’ adherence to the rules of collective bargaining, mutual respect and non-violent means of engagement,” spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said in a statement.

He said the union supported President Jacob Zuma’s call for stability and appealed to all parties to abide by the peace accord signed earlier in the year.

At a briefing in Pretoria about the economy and developments in the mining sector on Thursday, Zuma told reporters South Africa needed a stable mining industry to increase economic growth.

“Our country needs a stable and growing mining industry. Mining has been a key feature of this country’s economy for more than 130 years,” Zuma said at the Union Buildings.

Mining accounted for 6% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and generated 60% of South Africa’s export revenue, he said.

Zuma said the mining sector had been negatively affected by the depressed global economic growth, especially in Europe.

“The global recession has led to substantial declines in commodity prices and in the demand for our minerals abroad. And when our mining sector is in difficulties, this affects the wider economy, leading to industrial slowdown.”

Zuma said 2012 was a difficult year for the mining sector, with the deaths of 44 people during a strike in Marikana, North West, in August. However, government had acted to address labour relations in the mining sector.

Play by the rules

Following Zuma’s speech the NUM called on all parties, including mining companies, to play by the rules.

NUM general secretary Frans Baleni said: “As a union we are determined to play by the very same rules we want others to play by.”

However, the union said this did not mean that it should not demand what was fair for its members.

Seshoka said: “It also shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that strike action would cease to be the last resort as we normally do when parties are unable to agree.”

On Friday the ANC said reports linking Zuma’s address to the weakening of the rand were “unfounded”.

“Suggestions in the media linking the president’s speech to the news of the weakening rand are scientifically unfounded,” the office of ANC Chief Whip Moloto Mothapo said in a statement.

“The president’s bold intervention to address economic challenges cannot be the reason for the decline of the rand.”

On Thursday, the rand fell to around R10/$ a few hours after Zuma tried to assure the nation and investors that government was dealing with the instability in the mining sector. This was its lowest level in four years.

Mothapo’s office said the mining industry welcomed Zuma’s call to work together with government and labour. It welcomed Zuma’s “frank reflections” on the state of the South African economy, and said the country had done well on the economic front since the first democratic elections in 1994.

The Democratic Alliance said Zuma’s address was a missed opportunity.

DA MP Lindiwe Mazibuko said Zuma should have spoken decisively about the problems facing the economy.

“But instead of a plan of action on how to address our economic growth collapse to just 0.9 percent in the first quarter, we received only more of the vague reassurances which have characterised his term in office,” said Mazibuko.