IOL.co.za

Afrikan­ers have joined an inter­na­tional organ­i­sa­tion fight­ing for the rights of minori­ties, Free­dom Front Plus leader Pieter Mul­der said on Monday.

The Unrep­re­sented Nations and Peo­ples Organ­i­sa­tion (UNPO), at its Gen­eral Assem­bly in Brus­sels over the week­end, accepted the Afrikaner peo­ple as one of its 70 mem­bers which include Australia’s Abo­rig­i­nals, the Maa­sai of Kenya and Tan­za­nia and Tibetan monks.

Accord­ing to the FF Plus, the inclu­sion in this inter­na­tional pres­sure group was one of the par­ties’ great­est achievement’s to date.

“If you look at the sit­u­a­tion in South Africa at the moment, it would be unwise for a group such as the Afrikaner not to con­sider other options, and one of those options is to inter­na­tion­alise our case,” Mul­der said at a press con­fer­ence in Pretoria.

UNPO’s mem­ber­ship con­sists of indige­nous peo­ples, minori­ties, and unrecog­nised or occu­pied territories.

“It is an organ­i­sa­tion that fights for the right of the world’s silent voices,” Mul­der said.

It has grown from its orig­i­nal fif­teen founders, to rep­re­sent­ing almost 70 mem­bers worldwide.

Except for minor­ity group­ings, it also includes coun­tries that have declared inde­pen­dence and have not been recog­nised inter­na­tion­ally such as Soma­liland which is part of Soma­lia, and Iraq’s Kurdistan.

The organ­i­sa­tion lob­bies inter­na­tion­ally for the rights of these com­mu­ni­ties and coun­tries includ­ing at the United Nations (UN) and Euro­pean Parliament.

It counts the recog­ni­tion of Kosovo as one of its suc­cesses. — Sapa