Right-wing political groups are trying to use a UN initiative to protect indigenous peoples for their own political ends, reports Eddie Koch
A GROUP of boers, bushmen, basters and Zulu nationalists will make a bizarre set of bedfellows when they rally around the vierkleur, the pennant of the white right, at a conference this month to “promote the interests of indigenous people”.
An organisation calling itself the “Africa Indigenous People’s Council: Southern Africa Region” (AIPC) is staging a rally on May 30 and 31 to prepare resolutions for an annual gathering that is held by the United Nations in Geneva each year to discuss ways of protecting the rights of native populations around the
Invitations for the event have been sent to bushmen groups in South Africa and Namibia, Griqua chiefs in the Northern Cape, the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Unita rebel movement in Angola and the right-wing Renamo party in Mozambique.
According to the programme, “words of welcome” will be provided by Dr Ferdi Hartzenburg of the Conservative Party, while the opening speech will be delivered by Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
The closing address will be delivered by Jonas Savimbi, leader of the Unita rebel movement in Angola, while Mario Ambrosini, political adviser to Buthelezi and Inkatha, will lead a discussion about the UN’s plans to draft a declaration designed to entrench the rights of indigenous groups around the world.
According to the official conference invitation, the convenor of the Southern Africa Region of the AIPC is Chief JGA Diergaardt, leader of the Rehoboth Baster people in Namibia.
Telephone numbers given for the “secretariat” lead straight to the Pretoria offices of the Afrikaner Volksfront, an ultra-right-wing group that is lobbying for a boer homeland in South Africa.
The UN has declared that the decade between 1995 and 2005 will be used to highlight the plight of some 300- million people in 70 countries around the world who have been classified as “indigenous”.
Since last year, as a result of proposals made at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the UN hosts an annual conference in Geneva for any group which classifies itself as such to participate in drafting an international charter to protect their rights.
The world body has no precise definition of who is included under the indigenous rubric although some non- government groups working on the charter refer to native peoples who were resident in the territory of a country when it was colonised by other ethnic groups. Social groups who are “placed under a state structure which incorporates national, social and cultural characteristics alien to theirs” are also included in the definition.
Right-wing organisations in South Africa, including the Volksfront and the Inkatha Freedom Party, have clearly seized on the broad definitions as an opportunity to give international credibility to their demands for regional devolution of powers and self-determination.
A representative of the Department of Foreign Affairs, which has been invited to the May conference, said it appears the UN has no record of the AIPC and does not afford it any official recognition or status — although there are no bars on groups that wish to attend the working group in Geneva.
The Afrikaner Volksfront’s initiative to align its demands for a boer republic with the plight of indigenous minorities around the world is not likely to win widespread sympathy . One of the largest international non-government organisations set up to lobby for the rights of persecuted native and Indian groups, the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs, has already expressed concern that the Volksfront’s conference is a blatant attempt to hijack the international event for sectarian political purposes.
However, many of the minority groups invited to the May event have real political grievances and could be lured into an alliance with Inkatha and the white right if these are not attended to.