CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Teams representing a few of South Africa’s white minority responded Saturday to a plan by President Donald Trump to supply them refugee standing and resettlement in the US by saying: thanks, however no thanks.
The plan was detailed in an government order Trump signed Friday that stopped all assist and monetary help to South Africa as punishment for what the Trump administration stated have been “rights violations” by the federal government towards a few of its white residents.
The Trump administration accused the South African authorities of permitting violent assaults on white Afrikaner farmers and introducing a land expropriation legislation that allows it to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property with out compensation.”
The South African authorities has denied there are any concerted assaults on white farmers and has stated that Trump’s description of the brand new land legislation is filled with misinformation and distortions.
Afrikaners are descended from primarily Dutch, but additionally French and German colonial settlers who first arrived in South Africa greater than 300 years in the past. They converse Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch that developed in South Africa, and are distinct from different white South Africans who come from British or different backgrounds.
Collectively, whites make up round 7% of South Africa’s inhabitants of 62 million.
‘We’re not going wherever’
On Saturday, two of essentially the most distinguished teams representing Afrikaners stated they’d not be taking over Trump’s supply of resettlement within the U.S.
“Our members work right here, and need to keep right here, and they will keep right here,” stated Dirk Hermann, chief government of the Afrikaner commerce union Solidarity, which says it represents round 2 million individuals. “We’re dedicated to construct a future right here. We’re not going wherever.”
On the identical press convention, Kallie Kriel, the CEO of the Afrikaner foyer group AfriForum, stated: “We’ve got to state categorically: We don’t need to transfer elsewhere.”
Trump’s transfer to sanction South Africa, a key U.S. buying and selling associate in Africa, got here after he and his South African-born adviser Elon Musk have accused its Black management of getting an anti-white stance. However the portrayal of Afrikaners as a downtrodden group that wanted to be saved would shock most South Africans.
“It’s ironic that the manager order makes provision for refugee standing within the U.S. for a gaggle in South Africa that is still amongst essentially the most economically privileged,” South Africa’s Overseas Ministry stated. It additionally criticized the Trump administration’s personal insurance policies, saying the concentrate on Afrikaners got here “whereas weak individuals within the U.S. from different elements of the world are being deported and denied asylum regardless of actual hardship.”
There was “a marketing campaign of misinformation and propaganda” geared toward South Africa, the ministry stated.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson stated: “South Africa is a constitutional democracy. We worth all South Africans, Black and white. The assertion that Afrikaners face arbitrary deprivation and, due to this fact, must flee the nation of their start is an assertion devoid of all fact.”
Whites in South Africa nonetheless usually have a a lot better lifestyle than Blacks greater than 30 years after the tip of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994. Regardless of being a small minority, whites personal round 70% of South Africa’s personal farmland. A research in 2021 by the South Africa Human Rights Fee stated 1% of whites have been residing in poverty in comparison with 64% of Blacks.
Redressing the wrongs of colonialism
Sithabile Ngidi, a market dealer in Johannesburg, stated she hadn’t seen white individuals being mistreated in South Africa.
“He (Trump) ought to have really come from America to South Africa to attempt to see what was occurring for himself and never simply take the phrase of an Elon Musk, who hasn’t lived on this nation for the longest of time, who doesn’t even relate to South Africans,” Ngidi stated.
However Trump’s motion towards South Africa has given worldwide consideration to a sentiment amongst some white South Africans that they’re being discriminated towards as a type of payback for apartheid. The leaders of the apartheid authorities have been Afrikaners.
Solidarity, AfriForum and others are strongly against the brand new land expropriation legislation, saying it’ll goal land owned by whites who’ve labored to develop that land for years. Additionally they say an equally contentious language legislation that’s not too long ago been handed seeks to take away or restrict their Afrikaans language in faculties, whereas they’ve usually criticized South Africa’s affirmative motion insurance policies in enterprise that promote the pursuits of Blacks as racist legal guidelines.
“This authorities is permitting a sure part of the inhabitants to be focused,” stated AfriForum’s Kriel, who thanked Trump for elevating the case of Afrikaners. However Kriel stated Afrikaners have been dedicated to South Africa.
The South African authorities says the legal guidelines which have been criticized are aimed on the tough process of redressing the wrongs of colonialism after which practically a half-century of apartheid, when Blacks have been stripped of their land and nearly all their rights.
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Related Press journalist Sebabatso Mosamo in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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