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