Trump’s Controversial Claims on South African Farmers
The US President, Donald Trump, caught South African President Cyril Ramaphosa off guard during a meeting on Wednesday, with a video that aimed to back unproven accusations of “persecution” against white farmers.
This 4:30-minute video, which originated from a White House meeting, gained traction on social media over recent weeks, where Trump likened the situation to “genocide” against white farmers.
However, the content in the video was rife with inaccuracies.
Trump Demand Demand Au Prix de Afriques du Suzi Cyril Ramaphosa au Sjet des to Fermier Blanc Masature Per Milliers Dans Saint Son pays de dessenny. Il Lui Montre LaVidéo Dans Laquelle Julius Malema Exhorte Ses ses les blancs: “kill the boer.”
One segment of the video shows a white cross positioned on a winding road, surrounded by numerous vehicles.
“These are burial sites,” Trump asserted. “These cars are… stopped to pay tribute to the families who were killed.”
This footage, however, actually stems from a 2020 protest that commemorated a couple murdered on a farm in Normandy, as noted in press articles from that time. It does not represent grave sites.
The convicted murderer received a life sentence in 2022.
Another section of the video seems to contradict Trump’s assertions about the government’s expropriation of white farms, where politicians were heard saying, “South Africans are occupying the land, and that’s us.”
“These are officials,” Trump claimed, but the speakers were from Julius Malema’s left-wing party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which isn’t part of the government and only garnered about 9.5% of the vote in the last election.
Malema was also featured chanting the now-controversial anti-apartheid song, “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmers.” Trump suggested this indicated a genuine call to violence against minority farmers in Afrikaans.
This chant, which dates back decades, was famously used during the struggle against the minority rule that ended in 1994. Though there have been attempts to ban it, courts have argued it needs to be understood within a historical context.
After showcasing the video, Trump presented a stack of printed articles alleging he had evidence of a South African farm murder.
Included were a blog post from a little-known site called “American Thinker,” along with a photograph of a Hazmat worker handling body bags. Trump remarked, “Here’s the burial ground. These are white farmers buried there,” but this image actually comes from a YouTube video related to a tragic incident in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Trump contended that “these people are being killed in large quantities,” using an article that claimed thousands of white farmers had been murdered. While murders of farmers do occur, the overall context of crime in South Africa reveals the numbers to be comparatively low, amidst one of the world’s highest murder rates.
The Afrikaner Lobby Group Afriforum has long campaigned to highlight farm murders, reporting 49 such incidents in 2023. In stark contrast, police documented a total of 27,621 murders within the same timeframe, equating to about 75 daily deaths, predominantly among young Black men in urban settings.
