Voice of Apartheid Era May Vanish From S. African Airwaves

They tune in to talk shows where pundits frown on the mixed marriages and interracial socializing that have accompanied the demise of apartheid. They hear debate over whether the AIDS crisis is helping curb the black birth rate, or enjoy cultural programs featuring German marching music and rousing Swiss yodeling.

Since its unveiling a decade ago, Radio Pretoria, broadcast in the Afrikaans language, has become a beacon for conservative Afrikaners who held sway in South Africa until white rule ended in 1994.

But now it could be taken away from its 100,000 listeners.

In the next few days, a South African judge is to rule whether Radio Pretoria can continue operating. The station's refusal to hire blacks or anyone but white Afrikaners has put it at odds with the country's new constitution, which prohibits the kind of discriminatory hiring practices that were once the rule here.

"They're trying to close us down," lamented Jaap Diedericks, the gray-haired, bespectacled station manager. "We only employ good Afrikaners, the people who are our target audience. If it is known we employ coloreds or Zulus, Xhosas and those people, our own people will stop supporting us."

Especially, Diedericks said, at a time when government affirmative action places blacks in line for jobs that, in the old days, would have gone to Afrikaners.

"We can't now stick them in the back by employing other people while they're being laid off by the thousands," he said. "There is no way we are going to be forced to employ other cultures at a cultural radio station. That is as clear as mud."

The station's legal woes began in 2001 when its hiring practices prompted the Independent Communications Authority to refuse to renew its license, giving the station 30 days to close, Diedericks said.

The station took the case to the courts, and got permission to continue broadcasting until the matter was resolved this year.

Two weeks ago, a black judge, Ronnie Bosielo, listened impassively in a Pretoria courtroom as the station's attorneys argued that its unique nature demanded racially exclusive hiring.