US President Donald Trump has been accused of ambushing South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, at an Oval Office event by dimming the lights and playing a montage of video clips that Mr Trump alleged showed white farmers were being targeted and killed in the country.
The US leader said that people were “fleeing South Africa for their own safety” and that “their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed”.
Amongst the clips in the montage was a scene from a stadium packed for a political rally held by the Economic Freedom Fighters party, featuring leader Julius Malema singing Dubul’ ibhunu (“Kill the Boer (White Farmer)”). However, EFF are an opposition party and are not in government in South Africa.
Another clip showed footage reportedly of the graves of more than a thousand white farmers – with President Trump describing it as “it’s a terrible sight… I’ve never seen anything like it. Those people are all killed”.
However, South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, pushed back against the accusations, later saying “I’d like to know where that is because this [the alleged burial site in the video] I’ve never seen”.
He also said: “What you saw, the speeches that were being made, that is not government policy. We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves, political parties to adhere to various policies.
“And in many cases, or in some cases, those policies do not go along with government policy.
“Our government policy is completely, completely against what he [a person in the video montage] was saying, even in the parliament. And they are a small minority party which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution.”
On social media, critics said that Mr Ramaphosa had been ambushed unfairly as his political opponents, and not members of his ANC party, of the had featured in the clips. getting blamed for it.
Referencing people in the White House video, Mr Trump said: “These are people that are officials and they’re saying… kill the white farmer and take their land.” He then leafed through copies of news articles that he said showed white South Africans being killed, saying “death, death”.
In response, Mr Ramaphosa said that farmer deaths were due to criminality, while a member of his delegation said that most white farmers wished to stay.
A spokesman for the South African president, Vincent Mangwenya, told reporters outside the White House later that the “Shoot the Boer” chant “is a political chant”.
“There is no evidence that correlates the murders that we’ve seen in South Africa with that chant. None whatsoever,” he said.
However, US Secretary of State. Marco Rubio, previously said: “Kill the Boer” is a chant that incites violence. South Africa’s leaders and politicians must take action to protect Afrikaner and other disfavored minorities.”
“The United States is proud to offer those individuals who qualify for admission to our nation amid this continued horrible threat of violence,” he added.
A group of 59 white South Africans recently arrived in the US, where they will be given refugee status.