Donald Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during his visit to the White House amid ongoing tensions between the two countries. The US President showed a video of white farmers queueing to pay their respects at an allegedly murdered man’s grave in the South African nation, surprising Mr Ramaphosa.
The President of South Africa questioned Mr Trump if he knew where the video was from. Mr Ramaphosa said: “I need to check because I don’t know which area this is.”
Mr Trump has voiced opposition to South Africa’s land reform efforts which seek to redress apartheid-era injustices as well as the country’s genocide case against Israel.
South Africa has been pursuing allegations of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice. The White House has criticised the case, but Mr Trump didn’t address the issue in the Oval Office meeting on Wednesday (May 21).
The US leader previously withdrew aid to South Africa, expelled its ambassador and extended refuge to white minority Afrikaaners, citing claims of racial discrimination – allegations Pretoria dismisses as baseless.
The confrontation between the two leaders came after a reporter asked Mr Trump what it would take to persuade him that there isn’t white genocide happening in South Africa. However, the South African president was quick enough to answer that question.
He said: “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here… It will take President Trump to listen to them. I will not be repeating what l’ve been saying.’
Mr Trump said his administration has thousands of stories “talking about it” and then requested his staff to dim the lights. He then played a video of Julian Malema chanting “Kill the Boer!”. The US President claimed the video, which runs for some time, shows the burial sites of white farmers.
The accusations by the US President continued as he displayed news articles with photos of white South Africans’ faces which Mr Trump claimed had been murdered.
The US President Trump said: “Look at this.. white South African couple say that they were attacked violently”. He flipped to another article saying: “Here’s burial sites all over the place, these are all white farmers that are being buried.”
South Africa insists there is no evidence whites are being targeted. Some white farmers have been killed during violent home invasions, but South Africa’s government maintains the Trump administration doesn’t understand why these crimes happened.
Pretoria says those killings are part of a severe problem with crime and the killing of whites isn’t motivated by race. Black farmers have also been killed, according to the South African government.
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