Latest news with #landexpropriation
The Herald
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Herald
'Group of older men gossip about me': Malema on White House video clip
EFF leader Julius Malema has responded to a clip of him singing the controversial 'kill the Boer' chant after it was played during President Cyril Ramaphosa's meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday. Trump played the clip to try to prove claims of white genocide in South Africa, which Ramaphosa's delegation denied, saying that violent crime affects all South Africans, not just white farmers. Malema took to social media, describing the leaders and their delegation as 'a group of older men' who met to 'gossip about him'. He said there's no evidence to prove white genocide, despite him consistently singing the song. 'No significant amount of intelligence evidence has been produced about white genocide,' Malema said. 'We will not agree to compromise our political principles on land expropriation without compensation for political expediency.'
Free Malaysia Today
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
South Africans angered by Trump's ‘genocide' claims
President Donald Trump speaks with President Cyril Ramaphosa (left) during his visit to the White House in Washington. (EPA Images pic) CAPE TOWN : South Africans voiced anger Thursday at US President Donald Trump's persistent false claim of a genocide against white farmers that were repeated in talks with President Cyril Ramaphosa. The talks between the two presidents Wednesday were aimed at repairing relations that have nosedived since Trump took office in January, later threatening high trade tariffs and expelling the South African ambassador. 'I am not happy,' university student Nicole Mbhele told AFP. 'He made it seem like we want to kill white people or white farmers for our land, or (for) wanting it back,' she said. A video aired during the meeting showed the leader of a fringe, radical opposition party chanting a song from the anti-apartheid struggle about 'killing' white farmers. Trump also repeated baseless allegations that South Africa was expropriating land from the minority white Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers who own more than three-quarters of commercial farmland. 'Donald Trump does not have facts about what is happening in South Africa,' said 25-year-old saleswoman Naledi Morwalle. He was making 'false accusations about our country', she said. 'We are all facing all types and levels of crimes. Both blacks and whites,' she said. South Africans followed the meeting live on television and many were proud of the performance of the South African delegation, reinforced by four cabinet ministers and two top golfers. While some said Ramaphosa could have been more adamant in rejecting Trump's baseless claims of a 'white genocide', others noted his calm pushback that black South Africans suffer most from the high crime rate. 'I think our country did well and actually put the facts out there,' said activist Ulrich Steenkamp. 'Whether the world responds is up to them,' he added. The video played during the meeting, which also showed rows of white crosses in what Trump falsely said were graves of murdered white farmers, clearly rattled Ramaphosa, said analyst Thelela Ngcetane-Vika, of the Wits School of Governance. 'In the first half of the session President Ramaphosa was very well prepared, poised as a statesman, diplomatic… but when that video played, you could literally see his body language change, he became uneasy,' she told AFP. Ramaphosa should have provided data to disprove Trump's disinformation, she said. An Afrikaans father, Authur Williams, told AFP the success of the talks would only be seen in any trade deals reached between the two major trading partners. 'I sincerely hope that economically we will come to an agreement where it's mutually beneficial and there are economic benefits for both parties,' he said.
The Herald
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Herald
Five false claims by Trump during Ramaphosa meeting
South Africa has one of the world's highest murder rates, with an average of 72 a day, in a country of 60-million people. Most victims are black. South African police recorded 26,232 murders nationwide in 2024, of which 44 were linked to farming communities. Of those, eight of the victims were farmers. The Western Cape High Court ruled that claims of white genocide were 'clearly imagined and not real' in a case earlier this year, forbidding a donation to a white supremacist group on those grounds. 2. The government is expropriating land from white farmers without compensation, including through violent land seizures, to distribute it to blacks The government has a policy of attempting to redress inequalities in land ownership that are a legacy of apartheid and colonialism. But no land has been expropriated, and the government has instead tried to encourage white farmers to sell their land willingly. That hasn't worked. Some three-quarters of privately-owned farmland is still in the hands of whites, who make up less than 8% of the population, while 4% is owned by blacks who make up 80%. In an effort to address this, Ramaphosa signed a law in January allowing the state to expropriate land 'in the public interest', in rare cases without compensating the owner. The law requires authorities to first try to reach an agreement. It still hasn't been used. 3. The 'Kill the Boer' song sung by some black South Africans is an explicit call to murder Afrikaners who own most of the farmland The song dates back to the resistance against apartheid, when Afrikaner nationalists controlled the country. In one of the video clips Trump showed, firebrand EFF leader Julius Malema is singing the song.
NHK
22-05-2025
- Politics
- NHK
Trump criticizes South Africa's president over alleged persecution of whites
US President Donald Trump has publicly criticized South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, alleging that the white minority is being persecuted in his country. The United States announced a freeze on aid to South Africa after its government introduced a new policy on land expropriation. The Trump administration claims the policy threatens the rights of the white minority and is discriminatory. Trump met Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday. The summit began in a congenial atmosphere, with Ramaphosa expressing hope of mending bilateral relations by promoting trade and investment. But the mood changed when Trump played a video of what he described as people urging others to attack whites. Trump also showed papers that he said were articles that proved whites are being persecuted and even killed. Ramaphosa admitted there are criminal activities in South Africa, but said the majority of those killed are Black. He denied that white people are being racially persecuted. The focus of the summit had been whether the US could improve ties with South Africa, which chairs the G20 this year. But Trump's remarks have only underscored their differences.
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's ‘white genocide' claims ignore the reality of life and crime in South Africa
It was an ambush crafted straight from a reality-TV playbook. The Oval Office meeting with South Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, started with exchanges of pleasantries, before Donald Trump shouted 'turn the lights down' and a video was played to support his false claims that white South African farmers are being murdered for their race. Ramaphosa came prepared with champion white South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, whom the golf-mad Trump referred to as 'friends', as well as South Africa's richest person, Johann Rupert. Ramaphosa, who led the African National Congress (ANC) party's delegation in the talks that ended apartheid white-minority rule three decades ago, needed to play his strongest cards. In February, Trump signed an executive order cutting aid to South Africa, accusing it of 'unjust racial discrimination' against the white Afrikaner minority, which ruled the country during apartheid. The order criticised a South African law allowing land expropriation in limited circumstances and set up a program to bring Afrikaners to the US as refugees. The first group arrived earlier this month. South African media had speculated whether Ramaphosa was walking into a televised trap, like Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had just a few months before. The White House video was likely a surprise for the South Africans. It spliced together clips of Julius Malema, the leader of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition party, saying 'We are going to occupy land' and 'We must never be scared to kill', before singing the controversial Kill the Boer song ('Boer' is another name for Afrikaners and means 'farmer' in Afrikaans). Malema, whose populism is designed to shock – and whose EFF won just 9.5% of the vote in South Africa's 2024 election – will probably be thrilled with the attention, after being buoyed up by South African courts ruling that Kill the Boer is not meant to be taken literally. Former South African president Jacob Zuma, now leading his own opposition party, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), also featured in the video, singing in Zulu: 'We are going to shoot them. They are going to run.' The video ended with a drone shot of white crosses lining a road where vehicles were queued. Trump said they were paying respects to more than 1,000 murdered white farmers. Ramaphosa said he had never seen the video, which South African-born billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk reshared after it was posted on X in March. Trump then whipped out a sheaf of printed-out news articles, intoning, 'Death … death … death,' before handing it over to Ramaphosa. It was not immediately clear where the white crosses were filmed or even if the footage is real. The Whitkruis Monument is a memorial to dead South African farmers, but the crosses are clustered on a hillside on private land. While there have been farm murders involving horrific violence, killers interviewed in jail told Rudolph Zinn, a University of Limpopo professor, that they targeted victims of all races for cash and valuables. In the last quarter of 2024, South African police recorded 12 murders on farms, including Black-owned smallholder plots, out of almost 7,000 murders across the country. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion South Africa's agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, the Afrikaner leader of the ANC's main rival, the Democratic Alliance – which gets the bulk of its support from white South Africans – said most farmers wanted to stay in South Africa. He also defended the DA's coalition with the ANC to keep out the 'rabble' EFF and MK parties. The two golfers' words were perhaps less helpful. Els was cryptic: 'Two wrongs don't make a right.' Goosen spoke of his brother's 'constant battle' with people trying to burn down and take away his farm. However, their presence could snap Trump out of attack mode. 'I respect champions,' he said. 'I think the country is very lucky. They really wanted to be here, these two, they could have been on a beautiful fairway.' South Africa's most potent defender was Rupert, whose luxury goods conglomerate Richemont owns Cartier. Referring to Malema and Zuma, he said: 'I'm their No 1 target.' Rupert pointed out that all South Africans are targets of crime. He said how much his wife loved JD Vance's autobiography and begged for Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service at police stations. It remains to be seen, though, whether a fellow billionaire and a few rounds with South Africa's finest golfers will be enough to mollify Trump and persuade him to attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November.
