The Thabo Mbeki Foundation has published a 123-page paper examining the United States' stance on Afrikaners in South Africa. Dated August 31, 2026, the paper, titled "The United States of America and the Future of the Afrikaners in South Africa," questions why Washington regards a section of South Africa's white minority as persecuted. The Foundation, led by former President Thabo Mbeki, argues that the claim of genocide against Afrikaners is fabricated.
The paper begins by tracing the history of racial redress in the United States, from Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 to the 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions. It highlights that redress after a system of racial domination is a long and contested process. The Foundation questions why the US demands that South Africa abandon Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) 31 years after apartheid, when the US still needs targeted uplift 157 years after emancipation.
The paper documents two sets of visits by Afrikaner delegations to the US, including the Solidarity Movement, AfriForum, and Solidarity trade union delegation, which met US officials on February 25, 2025. These visits resulted in the "Washington Memorandum," which the Foundation claims promotes a narrow interest rather than representing all South Africans. The paper also notes that a June 2025 delegation of Corné Mulder, Theo de Jager, and Gerhard Papenfus declared that the "real leaders" were in Washington.
The Foundation analyzes the "Washington Memorandum" and argues that its language promotes a modern version of separate development, or a volkstaat by another name. It cites Afrikaner scholarship, including Professor Christi van der Westhuizen, to show that Afrikanerness was never monolithic. The paper also uses testimony from Afrikaners themselves, deployed against the movement that claims to speak for them.
The paper presents data to challenge the claims of Afrikaner persecution, including statistics from the Institute for Security Studies. It notes that farm murders accounted for 0.2% of national murders in 2023-24, and that the motive is almost always robbery. The paper also cites data showing that Afrikaner prosperity has increased, with total income in commercial agriculture rising by roughly 418% between 2007 and 2023.
The Foundation's paper also critiques the US delegations' silences on South Africa's structural realities, including unemployment of 32.9% and a homicide rate of around 45 per 100,000. It invites the delegations to publish what they actually told the American government. The paper reproduces former President Mbeki's 1997 explanation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" was an igwijo, a chant and not a policy statement.
The paper's most ambitious section reframes the entire post-1994 story, arguing that an organized "Counter Revolution" of apartheid-era forces and their infiltrators has aimed to capture the ANC, weaken the state, and sever South Africa's ties with the continent. Organisations such as Solidarity and AfriForum, it says, occupy the spaces opened by this decay, with the goal of securing Afrikaner privilege and access to state resources for "cultural autonomy."
Key points
- The Thabo Mbeki Foundation challenges the US narrative on Afrikaner persecution.
- The paper argues that the claim of genocide against Afrikaners is fabricated.
- The Foundation warns that abandoning redress would bring a social explosion.
