An organisation campaigning for freedom for Boers met Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi in Pretoria on Friday to convey their concerns.
The group, Sekretariaat vir Volksbou [Secretariat for Nation Building], asked the minister to relieve what it termed government pressure being exerted on the ”Boerevolk [Boer nation] ”.
This was being done through depriving Boer pupils of syllabi suited to them, affirmative action, and discriminative labour and land reform policies, according to Chris Wagner, convener of the secretariat’s coordinating executive.
He described Boers as a people sharing a certain history and expectations for the future. They distanced themselves from the ”Afrikaner liberal establishment” and had a common desire for freedom from ”oppression”.
”Not everybody who speaks Afrikaans are Boers. Not all white Afrikaners are Boers,” Wagner said after the meeting.
He could not give an indication of the extent of the organisation’s support base, but claimed the leaders of several other groupings supported its endeavours.
These included the Transvaal Agricultural Union, the Afrikaner Kultuurbond [Cultural League] and the labour union Solidarity, he said.
Solidarity, however, denied any link with the group.
Dirk Hermann, spokesperson for Solidarity said: ”We are not part of that group, and we don’t know what was the content of their discussion with the minister. We respect at he right of any group to hold talks, but we have nothing to do with them.”
Hermann said Solidarity was in the process of having talks with the government regarding affirmative action and would continue the process, adding that the claim had created a dilemma for the trade union.
He would try to make contact with them in order find out why they claimed support from Solidarity.
Wagner said the secretariat was concerned over what it regarded as attempts by the government to sideline minorities.
”We believe a more appropriate approach is to govern in such a manner that each element of the population is given the opportunity to develop to its full potential.”
Geographic segregation might be a natural result, but was not the group’s ultimate goal.
Wagner said the concept of an Afrikaner volkstaat was stillborn. It could take decades to realise, while in the meantime Boers were being murdered ”physically and spiritually”.
”The government is threatened by this nation, therefore it has to destroy it. Our message to them today was this: ‘Do not feel threatened. Exploit the potential the Afrikaner has, do not destroy it’.”
Wagner said Mufamadi gave an undertaking to start a process aimed at better understanding the group’s concerns.
Mufamadi’s office declined to comment, except to say that a memorandum received from the organisation would be delivered to President Thabo Mbeki. – Sapa