Vereniging van Oranjewerkers

Vereniging van Oranjewerkers is a South African white separatist political movement that seeks a homeland for Afrikaners.

History

Formed in 1980 by Wally Grant, H. F. Verwoerd junior, Carel Boshoff and C. J. Joost, the group bemoaned the over-reliance of South Africa on a black workforce and sought to set up Oranjegroeipunte where the group would buy up land to settle unemployed white people on.

Morgenzon

Such a scheme was set up in Morgenzon. Oranjewerkers bought the town in 1982, and in the mid-1990s its population was 400 whites and 6,000 blacks.
Alongside this they also developed the plan of bolwerke, or privately owned farms whose landowners would undertake to stop utilising black labour.

Aftermath

Eschewing the party political route, the Oranjewerkers became more of a research group, undertaking a series of studies of the demographics of the country. Leading member Hercules Booysen termed their mission as dinamiese-konserwatisme, seeking newer ways to implement the old ideas of apartheid and the creation of a Volkstaat. Similar plans for redesigning the map of South Africa have been suggested by the group from time to time.

In fiction

The organisation features prominently in Larry Bond's tale of a fictionalised Cold War conflict in South Africa, Vortex. By the novel's conclusion, they have succeeded in reaching their goal for an autonomous Afrikaner state under a post-apartheid government.