AFRIKANERS PROTEST, CLAIM RACIAL BIAS.

Byline: Associated Press 

They gathered 2,000 strong at an open-air meeting Saturday, once-privileged whites now complaining about racial discrimination in a black-led South Africa.

But the sight of organizers of the right-wing rally hoisting the country's new flag in a gesture of national reconciliation broke their unity.

"Take down that kaffir flag " shouted a knot of extremists, using a derogatory Afrikaans word for blacks. "If you raise that flag here today, blood will be spilled "

To a few cheers, one man ripped the flag off a tree while another held a cigarette lighter to it. An organizer wrested the flag back, walked to the podium and delivered a speech as the protesters stormed off.

Sticking to his prepared text, he didn't miss a beat.

"It's nice we could get together here today to look each other in the eye," Theo de Jager told the crowd in the shady grove in Pretoria, an Afrikaner stronghold.

The flag was folded and put away. But not the divide among Afrikaners in their reactions to their loss of power since Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president nearly two years ago.