WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday defended
the decision to resettle a group of white Afrikaners in the United States as
refugees, saying they were fleeing a “terrible situation” in South
Africa.
Trump’s remarks to reporters at the White House came just
hours before an initial group of around 50 Afrikaners was set to arrive at an
airport outside Washington.
The Republican president essentially halted refugee arrivals
after taking office as part of his crackdown on immigration, but is making an
exception for the white South Africans who are mainly descendants of Dutch
settlers.
Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa,
said white farmers were being killed in the country and repeated an allegation
of “genocide” that has been widely dismissed as absurd.
“It’s a terrible situation taking place,” he said.
“So we’ve essentially extended citizenship to those people to escape from
that violence and come here.
Those being resettled just “happen to be white, but
whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me,” he added.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa dismissed claims
Afrikaners were being persecuted and said he told Trump during a telephone
conversation that what he is being told about their situation “is not
true.”
“A refugee is someone who has to leave their country
out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution, or economic
persecution,” Ramaphosa said. “And they don’t fit that bill.”
“We’re the only country on the continent where the
colonizers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country,”
he added at a forum in Abidjan.
South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola also scoffed at
claims that white Afrikaners, mainly descendants of Dutch settlers, face
persecution or are being targeted for murder.
Most victims of killings in South Africa are young black men
in urban areas, according to official data.
“The crime that we have in South Africa affects
everyone irrespective of race and gender,” Lamola said ‘Beyond absurd’ –
The group of 49 people left Johannesburg airport on a
chartered flight on Sunday and are due to land Monday afternoon at Dulles
Airport in Virginia.
Under eligibility guidelines published by the US embassy,
applicants must either be of Afrikaner ethnicity or belong to a racial minority
in South Africa.
They must also
“be able to articulate a past experience of persecution or fear of future
persecution.”
Trump and Musk have accused the South African government of
targeting Afrikaners with a controversial land seizure law enacted this year.
On Monday, Trump threatened to not attend an upcoming G20
summit in South Africa unless the “situation is taken care of.”
America’s biggest trading partner in Africa is also under
fire from Washington for leading a case at the International Court of Justice
accusing US-ally Israel of “genocidal” acts in its Gaza offensive, a
claim Israel denies.
Many have expressed bemusement that whites could be assigned
victim status in South Africa.
Prominent Afrikaner author Max du Preez said the
resettlement was “beyond absurd.”
“This is about Trump and MAGA, not about us. It’s about
their hatred for DEI,” he told AFP, referring to diversity programs that
have become a Trump target.
“The people who have now fled have probably been
motivated by financial considerations and/or an unwillingness to live in a
post-apartheid society where whites no longer call the shots,” he said.
Whites, who make up 7.3 percent of the population, generally
enjoy a higher standard of living than the Black majority. They still own
two-thirds of farmland and on average earn three times as much as Black South
Africans.
Mainly Afrikaner-led governments imposed the race-based
apartheid system that denied the black majority political and economic rights
until it was voted out in 1994.
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