South Africa accuses Trump of racial divisions after land policy tweet

The conspiracy theory – which has its origins in South African right-wing groups, including AfriForum – posits that the government has already begun seizing white-owned land, and that white farmers are being killed and tortured at high rates in an effort to cleanse South Africa of its white minority.

A spokesperson said Thursday that the president asked Pompeo to investigate reports that the South African government is expropriating land owned by white farmers without compensation.

It’s interesting that after South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa said farm lands need to be returned to Black people from white farmers, that Trump has made it his business to save white tears.

However, the president’s comments were applauded by AfriForum, an organization that mostly represents white South Africans who have described land expropriation as “catastrophic” and traveled to the United States this year to lobby the Senate and other officials.

The comments drew harsh criticism from South African citizens and institutions alike, with the South African government claiming that Trump’s tweet sought to “divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past”.

“This is our South Africa, this is our land, this is where we live”, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane told South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC. So, facing pressure from rivals in the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) recently chose to move towards claiming white-owned farmland without payment.

Some analysts say the policy has been advanced to rally grassroots support for the ANC before a hard general election next year, and that Ramaphosa has little intention of implementing widescale and hugely disruptive measures.

Twenty-four years on and the white community that makes up eight percent of the population “possess 72 percent of farms” compared to “only four percent” in the hands of black people who make up four-fifths of the population, according to Ramaphosa.

AgriSA, one of the country’s biggest farmers’ associations, said a couple months ago that murders of farmers was actually at a 20-year low, with 47 deaths in the last year, as opposed to 153 in 1998. Those killings on farms are part of the 19,000 murders in the country over the same period, Gareth Newham, head of the crime and justice program of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, told The Associated Press.

Earlier this year, Australia’s home affairs minister Peter Dutton prompted a diplomatic row with Pretoria. Some white South Africans say attacks on farmers are intentionally underreported.

“The murders on farms are a reflection of the security situation in South Africa”.

Nkozi Mandela, a member of the Pan African Parliament and grandson to the former president, tore into Trump’s statements, Time reported Thursday.

“‘Nothing to see here, ‘ says Mike Pompeo’s State Department”, the Fox News host said.

The director-general said the future of agriculture in South Africa is white and black farmers working together, funded by government.

“As the leadership of the ANC and government”, Mabuza added, “we are clear that the implementation of land reform measures must not result in social fractures and racial polarization”.

But South African critics of the proposed land reform policy applauded Trump for speaking out, and the most radical supporters of the policy – like Malema – confirmed the racial motivations behind the new policy, while daring the United States to do anything about it.