Trump’s ‘white genocide’ claim sparks backlash in South Africa

Many South African citizens are displeased with the unfounded allegation of “white genocide” pushed by US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, during a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

They expressed displeasure with Mr Trump’s attempt to label the country’s land expropriation law as a racially motivated campaign against white farmers.

Some observers, on Thursday, opined that the South African delegation appeared unprepared for Mr Trump’s unconventional and confrontational approach to diplomacy.

The meeting, which was supposed to strengthen diplomatic ties between the US and South Africa, took a nosedive after a reporter asked Mr Trump about the United States’ decision to grant refugee status to white South Africans.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the US President, in response, alleged that numerous white South African farmers have been brutally murdered over land ownership.

As proof of this claim, the president aired video clips of people talking about “cutting the throat” and shooting white people.

The clips included speeches from Julius Malema, the founder and leader of the socialist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, who regularly uses the phrase, ‘Shoot the Boer, Shoot the farmer,’ at rallies.

“Each one of those white things you see is a cross, and there are approximately a thousand of them. They’re all white farmers,” Mr Trump said, referring to another clip that aired on a television screen at the Oval Office.

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Mr Ramaphosa pushed back against the allegation, pointing out that one of the clips played was a speech by an opposition party leader and is not a representation of the government’s policy.

His voice, however, was drowned in the conversation, and his delegation watched stunned in silence.

EFF responds

Many South Africans considered Mr Trump’s action as an ambush against the South African president and his delegation.

In a statement titled, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer, victory is certain,” EFF, the South African opposition party, condemned Mr Trump’s demand for the arrest of its leader.

The party stated that it was proud that “its legislative and political agenda has shaken the corridors of imperialism in Washington.”

The party described Mr Trump’s statement as “illiterate rants” while noting that “Malema can be considered in the line of great revolutionaries.”

Mr Malema, responding to the meeting in a post on X, wrote, “A group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me. ‘No significant amount of intelligence evidence has been produced about white genocide.

‘We will not agree to compromise our political principles on land expropriation without compensation for political expediency.”

The white cross image is not a burial site

Meanwhile, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the display of white crosses in images displayed at the Oval Office was symbolically planted on the side of the road during a 2020 protest related to the killings of a white South African couple.

The couple is Glenn and Vida Rafferty. The men held responsible for their murder had been convicted in 2022.

Mr Trump had described the image as a burial site for over 1,000 white farmers who are victims of the said “white genocide.”

“These are burial sites, over 1,000 white farmers, and those cars aren’t driving, they’re stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed,” Mr Trump had said to Mr Ramaphosa.

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However, the man who organised the display of white crosses said the US president was wrong when he described it as a “burial site”.

The BBC identified the man as Rob Hoatson and reported that the crosses were put up on the roadside in KwaZulu-Natal province as a memorial to a couple who were killed on their farm in 2020.

There is no evidence of a genocide against white farmers in South Africa. While farm attacks and murders do occur, they are part of the broader high crime rate in South Africa, and are not part of a coordinated campaign to exterminate a racial group.

Most victims of South Africa’s notoriously high crime rate are black.