South African government is stripping minorities of their minority rights Report to the UN Forum on Minority Issues Geneve, 27-28 November 2012 Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum 1. Background In stark contrast to the praiseworthy efforts by the Forum on Minority Issues to implement the Dec laration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic , Religious and Linguistic Minorities in UN member countries, the South African government is increasingly stripping its minorities of the limited minority rights they still have. The motive for doing so is set out in the policy documents of the South African governing party, namely the African National Congress (ANC), as to what it calls 'the National Democratic Revolution' (NDR). In terms of the ANC's NDR policy documents South African minorities such as Afrikaners and whites in general are not regarded as fellow Africans, but as 'colonialists of a special type' (CSTs). By labelling South African minority communities as CSTs, depicting them as the antithesis of the so-called 'motive forces' of the continued struggle, the government is portraying the CSTs as opponents, or even enemies of the revolution. In terms of this logic of the ANC, the NDR is in effect engaged in a struggle against the CST. The CSTs are not part of the ANC's 'we', namely Africans, South Africans and 'motive forces', but rather the 'they' against whom the struggle should be fought. In 1962 the South African Communist Party (SACP), which is a member of the present South African Freedom' policy document states that the 'colonial state' needs to be overthrown and the new state used to suppress the former ruling classes and to transform society. The ANC committed itself to the National Democratic Revolution in 1969. Some may argue that the above battle-inspired terminology only applies to the ANC before 1994 and that the ANC has done away with it by making important concessions during the political transition. However, the following becomes evident in the ANC's post-1994 strategy documents:  The ANC does not regard the agreements made during the political transition to be a final compromise made to ensure peace and cooperation among all South Africans.  Tactical concessions were merely made in order to obtain state power, after which the agreements reached could be disregarded as the balance of power shifted in favour of the ANC.  The struggle continues, the only difference being that it is now being conducted with the power of the state at its disposal. 1 AfriForum