Trump confronts south african president with white genocide claims in surreal oval office meeting

WASHINGTON — President Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Wednesday with claims that the country is carrying out a genocide of white farmers — ordering the Oval

Office’s lights be dimmed to show an inflammatory five-minute video detailing purported evidence of crimes against humanity. Trump, who said he personally hadn’t “made up my mind” on using

the word “genocide,” said that “thousands” of white South Africans are seeking refugee status in the US and that he wants to “save lives.” The footage played at the meeting showed left-wing

populist leader Julius Malema calling for the murder of members of South Africa’s 4.5 million-strong white community, which comprises about 7.3% of the population, and a roadside memorial

ostensibly for dozens of murdered white farmers. “Revolution demands at some point there must be killing,” Malema said in one clip, with several others showing the Economic Freedom Fighters

leader dancing in packed stadiums while singing, “kill the Boer, the farmer!”  In other footage, Malema, who was expelled from Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party in 2011,

proclaimed, “We are cutting the throat of whiteness!” Still another clip featured Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president from 2009 to 2018, singing the anti-apartheid “kill the Boer” anthem,

which has allegedly fueled tensions and farm invasions. EXPLORE MORE Trump also hammered Ramaphosa for a recently passed law allowing the South African government to confiscate allegedly

unused land — as South Africa-born Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a key Trump adviser, looked on. The US president has fast-tracked refugee status for the country’s Afrikaner

minority — with an initial group of more than four dozen arriving this month — and told Ramaphosa that a friend of his from South Africa said “they take your land and they kill you” if

you’re white. “I will say, apartheid, terrible,” said Trump. “That was the biggest story — that was reported all the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What’s happening now is

never reported.” Ramaphosa, 72, stayed calm and deferential during the more than hour-long discussion in front of the press — remarkably good-natured, given the video’s content. “What you

saw, the speeches that were being made, one that is not government policy,” Ramaphosa insisted.  “Our government policy is completely, completely against what [Malema] was saying.” “Why

wouldn’t you arrest that man?” Trump asked rhetorically. “That was a stadium that holds 100,000 people, and I hardly saw an empty seat.” Ramaphosa avoided a blowup with Trump by deferring to

prominent white South Africans who joined him on the trip, including major champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and thanking the president for providing South Africa with

respirators during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Jan Steenhuisen, the country’s white agriculture minister, acknowledged that South Africa has “a rural safety problem.” “I don’t think

anyone wants to candy-coat that,” he added, “and it requires a lot of effort to get on top of it. It’s going to require more policing resources, it’s gonna require a different strategy to be

able to deal with it. But certainly, the majority of South Africa’s commercial and smallholder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work.” “The reason that my party,

the Democratic Alliance, which has been an opposition party for over 30 years, chose to join hands with Mr. Ramaphosa,” Steenhuisen added, “was precisely to keep those people [like Malema]

out of power.” The ANC came out on top in South Africa’s general election last year with about 40% of the vote, continuing a decades-long decline, followed by the Democratic Alliance with

about 21%, supported mostly by white and mixed-race voters. Zuma’s new MK party took about 15% and Malema’s EFF nearly 10%. Zingiswa Losi, president of COSATU, the country’s largest trade

union, tried to reframe the Oval Office discussion, telling Trump that South Africa was a “violent nation” and that blacks are the primary victims. “If you go into the rural areas where the

black majority are, you will see women, elderly, being raped, being killed, being murdered,” she said. “The problem in South Africa, it is not necessarily about race, but it is about crime.”

Ramaphosa blamed violence on unemployment, telling Trump, “Crime really thrives where there is inequality and unemployment, and that is one of the reasons that has brought us here to

improve our investment relations, our trade relations.”  “Our main, main, real reason for being here is to foster trade and investment,” he added, “so that we are able to grow our economy,

with your support, and so that we are also able to address all these societal problems.” As Ramaphosa left the White House after about three hours, he told reporters the meeting “went very

well.” “Yes, he did,” the South African leader added when asked if Trump had heard his concerns. “It went very well.”