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A meeting meant to soothe tensions between the US and South Africa instead spiralled as President Donald Trump put his counterpart on the defensive with claims that white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.
On Wednesday, a week after the US granted asylum to nearly 60 Afrikaners – a move that rankled South Africa – President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House to reset the countries’ relations.
Instead, Trump surprised Ramaphosa during a live news conference with widely discredited claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa, reports the BBC.
He played a video showing an exhibit during a protest of several crosses lining a road – claiming they were burial sites for murdered white farmers.
Trump said he did not know where in South Africa it was filmed. The crosses, in fact, were not actual graves, but appear to be from a 2020 protest after a farming couple was killed in KwaZulu-Natal province.
Organisers said at the time that they were an exhibit representing farmers killed over years.
Before Wednesday’s White House meeting, South Africa’s leader stressed that improving trade relations with the US was his priority.
South African exports into the US face a 30 percent tariff once a pause on Trump’s new import taxes ends in July.
Ramaphosa hoped to charm Trump during the meeting, bringing along two famous South African golfers and gifting him a huge book featuring his country’s golf courses.
The meeting came days after the arrival of 59 white South Africans in the US, where they were granted refugee status.
Ramaphosa said at the time they were “cowards”.
Still, the Oval Office meeting began cordially, until Trump asked for the lighting to be lowered for a video presentation. The mood shifted.
The film featured the voice of leading South African opposition figure Julius Malema singing: “Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer”.
It then showed a field of crosses, which the US president, talking over the images, said was a burial site of white farmers.
He handed Ramaphosa what appeared to be print-outs of stories of white people being attacked in South Africa.
Trump said that he would seek an “explanation” from his guest on claims of white “genocide” in South Africa, which have been widely discredited.
Ramaphosa responded to the opposition chants in the video, saying, “What you saw – the speeches that were made… that is not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”
“Our government policy is completely against what he [Malema] was saying even in the parliament and they are a small minority party, which is allowed to exist according to our constitution.”
Ramaphosa said Wednesday that he hoped Trump would listen to the voices of South Africans on this issue.
He pointed out the white members of his delegation, including golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert.
“If there was a genocide, these three gentlemen would not be here,” Ramaphosa said.
Trump interrupted: “But you do allow them to take land, and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer nothing happens to them.”
“No,” Ramaphosa responded.
The US leader seemed to be referencing that Malema and his party, who was not part of the government, have the power to confiscate land from white farmers, which they do not.
A controversial law signed by Ramaphosa earlier this year allows the government to seize privately-owned land without compensation in some circumstances.
The South African government said no land had been seized yet under the act.
Ramaphosa did acknowledge that there was “criminality in our country… people who do get killed through criminal activity are not only white people, the majority of them are black people”.
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