April 09 2004 at 02:21PM

Topping the Northern Cape African National Congress's national assembly list and heading for a seat in parliament is a 33-year-old Afrikaner farmer from Karos, on the banks of the Orange River.

"People have 100 percent trust in Hannes Combrink. That's because he is genuine. It is based on his work," says Northern Cape ANC Youth League treasurer Elvin Botes of the man who surprised the local ANC community and worked his way up party ranks.

Combrink was chairperson of the National Party youth council in the old Gordonia region when, in July 1998, he went to the provincial ANC leadership and asked to join.

"I told them I didn't want a position. I just wanted to join. So many people who cross from one party to another want a position, but I am not like that."

By that time Combrink had become increasingly dissatisfied with the National Party, which later became the New National Party now contesting the elections.

"Their people still spoke of 'the blacks' and 'the coloureds', they didn't talk of us all working together. The NP said it was the 'organisation of change', but what did they do? - that which they are now doing. That's what I told them to do then."

Combrink's party swap cost him dearly.

"I lost an incredible number of friends, and some family. Now most of my circle of friends are brown and black people. I don't like to categorise, but that's how it is. It wasn't a joke, I tell you."

Combrink speaks of an abiding love for the Green Kalahari - the area along the river. He farms 60 hectares of wine and raisin grapes, cotton, and mielies with his brother and 15 permanent staff. During the grape and cotton seasons a further 50-odd workers join his staff.

It is wonderful to work with the people. When they feel they can come to you when they see you are trying to make a difference."

It was Combrink's attempts to make a difference on his farm at Karos that first brought him to the ANC's attention.

"It was amazing. We heard of this gentleman who was treating his workers so very well. That was a first. We thought we should perhaps send some of our leadership to meet him," Botes said.

Combrink remembers that he was approached several times by the ANC. "They told me: 'You think like us. You reason like us'."

Eventually, tired of the high numbers of the "old guard" within the NP, Combrink ditched the party and joined the ANC Youth League in the Siyanda region, which includes Karos.

"It is our God-given duty to work together," he says.

Combrink has more than proved that he is not one of those who just want a membership card for what it can do for them.

"About a year back he was directly elected as regional executive member of the ANC in the Siyana region. He did it by himself, from the bottom. Now he's top of that list," says Botes.

"We have high hopes for him and the youth league wishes him well. Watch this man over the next 10 years."

Combrink shakes his head over those for whom ANC membership is a ticket to a ride.

"Just the other day someone phoned me and asked how he can join. He wanted to know what benefits the card would bring him, if he would get more business. I told him the benefit you get is that you can make a change in your country."

While Combrink will be off to Parliament after April 14 - the ANC is assured of a majority in the Northern Cape - he will always come back to his farm.

"I love it here. It's the middle of nowhere. The paradise in the middle of the Kalahari.

And when you go into the Kalahari what could be better than a glass of wine in your campsite as the sun goes down?"

However, Combrink is not over-romantic about this far-northern part of South Africa's driest region.

"I'll never forget as a child driving on the road to Groblershoop and Kakamas. You would see people, old and sick, carrying water. The old government didn't spend money on them. They spent that money on a war. And for what? I still don't know why I had to sit in the army for a year."

He also points to the empty shopping centres in Upington.

"Apartheid ensured the town was owned by a small clique. Now that clique has put rents so high that not even white people can afford it. Small, small shops cost you R7 000, R8 000 a month. If you have a little hamburger shop, how many hamburgers is that? It's the same in Kimberley."

This attitude was one of the factors which sent Combrink ANC-wards.

"What makes me love the ANC is that not only some people have privileges. It's for everyone. Now a lot more people have water and electricity. Rome wasn't built in a day, there are still many people without, but look at how many have been empowered."

Combrink gazes at the swiftly flowing Orange River and wishes that the people of the area would work together to extend the advantages that are already there.

"We have enough water and enough sunshine to grow any product. Look at our airport. It has the longest runway in the southern hemisphere, huge planes that can't land in other places can land. Unfortunately it only gets used in December-January when the farmers are exporting."

Combrink believes things have changed, and will continue to do so. He will be there to make it all happen. He is sad that there are still political parties that play the race card to garner votes.

"Here in Upington the Independent Democrats have canvassed saying they are here to represent the coloureds. The NNP and the Freedom Front Plus say they are for the Afrikaner. Those days are gone. We must work together. We are all South Africans." - Sapa

source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=qwB242&set_id=1

As much as we would like to believe the Boers and the ANC could or would work together, this story paints a very different picture and it is one we should be vary wary of.

Remember Piet Retief and Dingaan.

The only factor that will keep and carry on keeping the Boers as a nation intact is not selling out to the ANC.

The one single factor unique to the Boers is God.

Do not forget Your God of the Blood River!