By Enyichukwu Enemanna
US President, Donald Trump, on Wednesday ambushed his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, with what he termed evidence of genocide against white farmers during their Oval Office meeting.
This is the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since the expulsion of the South African ambassador to the United States, after icy relations between the two countries when Trump took office earlier this year.
Trump has repeatedly criticised South African land reform, which is aimed at addressing the injustices of apartheid.
After taking office on 20 January, Trump announced the termination of aid to South Africa, expelled its ambassador, and offered refuge to white minority Afrikaners who he said were victims of racial discrimination, an allegation Pretoria says is unfounded.
After a friendly start to the meeting, Trump played a video showing an opposition leader chanting “Kill the Boer!” and what he claimed were burial sites of murdered white farmers.
Ramaphosa, however, quickly pushed back on the claims, denying the killing of whites in South Africa.
Ramaphosa had earlier said that no matter what, the US and South Africa “are joined at the hip and we need to be talking to them.” The US is South Africa’s second biggest trading partner after China.
Joining in the presidential delegation to the US were luxury goods tycoon Johann Rupert and champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen.
Trump was accompanied by Vice President JD Vance and South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who has accused Ramaphosa of pursuing anti-white policies.
Ramaphosa responded to the video by saying, “That is not government policy” and “Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying,” referring to the opposition leader, Julius Malema, seen in the video but Trump doubted the response.
Trump said, “When they take the land, they kill the white farmer.”
Ramaphosa also noted that some members of his administration are Afrikaners.
Trump also produced a stack of printouts that he said were reports about slain white farmers.
“Death, death, horrible death,” he said.
A reporter asked Trump what it would take to be convinced that there is no genocide in South Africa. Ramaphosa responded, saying it would take the US President “listening to the voices of South Africa, some of whom are his friends.”
“If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I bet you these three gentlemen would not be here,” Ramaphosa said, referring to others in his delegation.
“There is criminality in our country,” Ramaphosa said. “People who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity, are not only white people. The majority of them are Black people,” he told Trump.
