{"id":823682,"date":"2025-05-10T07:08:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T05:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=823682"},"modified":"2025-05-10T07:08:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T05:08:34","slug":"south-africa-in-talks-with-the-us-over-100-white-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/823682\/south-africa-in-talks-with-the-us-over-100-white-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa in talks with the US over 100 white ‘refugees’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa\u2019s government is engaging US authorities about the Trump administration\u2019s plan to resettle White Afrikaners to ensure the program doesn\u2019t provide an opportunity for fugitives to flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of about 100 Afrikaners, an ethnic group descended mainly from Dutch and French settlers, are scheduled to travel to the US on a chartered flight next week, according to two South African government officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa hasn\u2019t been advised yet who the people are and the authorities are keen to ensure no wanted individuals leave the country, according to the officials who asked not to be identified because they\u2019re not authorized to speak to the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ongoing Engagements\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are ongoing diplomatic engagements on this issue in particular, as well as other related key matters of bilateral and mutual interest,\u201d South African Presidency spokesman Vincent Magwenya said by text message. The discussions are expected to continue through the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talks took place on Friday between South African Deputy International Relations and Cooperation Minister Alvin Botes and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, the foreign ministry said in a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0in the capital, Pretoria, on Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has sought information on the status of the people who will be traveling to the US and assurances that they\u2019ve been appropriately vetted, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spokespeople for the White House and the Department of Homeland Security didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talks are part of a broader effort by President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s government to repair relations with the US, its second-biggest trading partner, that have become increasingly strained since President Donald Trump took office in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has accused the government of seizing land from White Afrikaners and offered to resettle them as refugees in the US. Elon Musk, the president\u2019s South Africa-born billionaire backer, has spread a conspiracy theory that there is a \u201cgenocide\u201d of White people in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government hasn\u2019t seized any land since the end of apartheid in 1994. South African crime statistics show that the highest number of people being murdered in the country are young Black men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa said on April 24 he had a call with his US counterpart to discuss the two countries\u2019 relations. During that conversation, Ramaphosa conveyed to Trump that he had been given false information about the country, Magwenya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur position is that there are no South African citizens that can be classified as refugees to any part of the world, including the US,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the contrary, South Africa has been and remains a home for refugees from all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 7% of South Africa\u2019s 63 million people are White, and 11% of the population speak Afrikaans as their home language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afrikaner lobby group Solidarity previously declined Trump\u2019s offer to resettle its members in February and confirmed on Friday that its position hasn\u2019t changed. The group also wasn\u2019t involved in facilitating the move of the people scheduled to be resettled next week, spokesman Flip Buys said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solidarity opposes<\/a> race quotas that have been imposed by the government, including mandatory targets for hiring and promoting people within specific race groups as a means to redress the economic imbalances wrought by apartheid, when Black South Africans were excluded from the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter to Ramaphosa in February, Solidarity denied approaching the US administration about an alleged genocide against White people, or that it was responsible for the US\u2019s \u201cnegative attitude\u201d toward the African National Congress, the largest party in South Africa\u2019s coalition government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times reported earlier on Friday on the planned resettlement of the first White Afrikaners next week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa\u2019s government is engaging US authorities about the Trump administration\u2019s plan to resettle White Afrikaners to ensure the program doesn\u2019t provide an opportunity for fugitives to flee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":810911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10849],"class_list":["post-823682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823683,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823682\/revisions\/823683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}