South African officials try to avert gold rush

JOHANNESBURG - Councillors in a South African town were yesterday trying desperately to avert a frantic new gold rush after a newspaper reported that a famous treasure - allegedly buried in the area during the Anglo-Boer war - had been discovered by farm labourers.

Officials in Ermelo, in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, last week admitted for the first time that they were keeping secret the location of the "Kruger millions", allegedly found by a Zulu family in the 1960s.

Ever since the discovery, the family had allegedly dug up and sold coins from the treasure piecemeal.

The report in The Citizen newspaper last Friday was the latest hint that Paul Kruger's legendary treasure may have existed and may actually still be partly intact.

In the 1880s, Afrikaner leader Paul Kruger issued orders that if the British threatened the capital, Pretoria, the entire national treasury - made up of coins and gold bullion - should be put on wagons and hidden in the countryside.

The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 saw Britain occupy Pretoria in June 1900. Kruger fled into exile in Switzerland, where he died. In the following two years an estimated 30,000 Boers and their black servants died in British concentration camps.

Amid the collapse of Kruger's republic, most of his faithful generals and aides died. The location of the republic's treasury remained a mystery.

Athol Stark, an Ermelo councillor, said: "Last month we found a statue of Paul Kruger so we looked into our local history." According to South African reports, a Zulu family of farm labourers which has lived in the Ermelo area for more than 100 years has dug up some 4,000 gold coins known as Kruger pounds and may have sold up to 400 of them for their scrap value since the 1960s.

However, it is likely that the one-ounce gold coins have a historical value which would hike their price were they to come on to the world market. Analysis of the coins apparently shows they were minted in 1889. It is understood that the family contacted Mr Stark in 1999.

He said: "As far as we can determine, the treasury funds from Pretoria were divided into three batches, one of which came through Ermelo." He said the commando protecting the wagons came under British attack. The wagons were buried and those who knew their location were killed by the British.

- INDEPENDENT