Dozens of white Afrikaners are scheduled to arrive in the US on Monday, the first beneficiaries of a controversial resettlement program instigated by President Donald Trump that his South African counterpart says is misguided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tensions between Washington and Pretoria have been running high since Trump began his second term in January, accused the South African authorities of seizing land from white Afrikaners and offered to resettle them as refugees in the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elon Musk, the president\u2019s Pretoria-born billionaire backer, has meanwhile spread a conspiracy theory that there is a \u201cgenocide\u201d of white people in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There have been no official land seizures in South Africa since apartheid ended in 1994, while police statistics show young Black men bear the brunt of violent crime. <\/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
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who\u2019s been trying to mend relations with South Africa\u2019s second-biggest trading partner, said he told Trump in a recent conversation that the US had been misinformed about a \u201cfringe group\u201d of Afrikaners who wanted to leave \u2014 and that they didn\u2019t fit the description of refugees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThose people who have fled are not being persecuted. They are not being hounded, they are not being treated badly and they are leaving ostensibly because they don\u2019t want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country in accordance with our constitution,\u201d Ramaphosa told a panel discussion in Ivory Coast on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe think that the American government has got the wrong end of the stick here, but we\u2019ll continue talking to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other points of contention between the US and South Africa include Pretoria\u2019s decision to file a case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel, a top American ally, of committing a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and Pretoria\u2019s close ties with Iran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ramaphosa is planning a working visit to the US, and the Presidency will communicate the details soon, International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
AfriForum, a conservative white Afrikaans rights group, described the departure of the first \u201crefugees\u201d to the US as a serious indictment against South Africa\u2019s government, which it said has refused to condemn calls for violence against Afrikaners, adopted racially discriminatory legislation and condoned land seizures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfriForum and our allies will also intensify our efforts to use every possible mechanism at our disposal, including international pressure, to bring about a change of direction in the country for the benefit of all, including Afrikaners,\u201d Kallie Kriel, the group\u2019s chief executive officer, said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ramaphosa signed off on legislation late last year that will make it easier for the government take take land without paying for it in the public interest to help ensure equitable access to land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His administration hasn\u2019t expropriated any property so far, although millions of people have taken occupation of private and government property \u2014 official data show that about 12% of households are situated in informal settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in 2023, the president assented to a law that will enable the labor minister to compel companies to meet targets to ensure that workplace demographics reflect the national and regional economically active population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic Alliance, the country\u2019s second-biggest party and a member of the ruling alliance, has challenged both laws in court, arguing that they are discriminatory and are constitutionally invalid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Cyril Ramaphosa says that dozens of white “refugees” landing in the United States don’t fit the description, and that Washington’s efforts are misguided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":807568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823800","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=823800"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823813,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823800\/revisions\/823813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}