• By Staff Reporter

South Africa rejects the allegation that white people are disproportionately targeted by crime. As that country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa alluded to in the meeting with United States President Donald Trump, murder rates are high in the country and the overwhelming majority of victims are black.

After a friendly initial chat in which Trump complimented South African golfers, Ramaphosa indicated that he wanted to talk about critical minerals and trade, however, Trump had the lights dimmed to play a video that purported to show evidence of a genocide against white farmers in South Africa.

Ramaphosa mostly sat expressionless while the video was played, occasionally craning his neck to look at it. Trump claimed the video showed the graves of thousands of white farmers. Ramaphosa said he had not seen that before, and that he would like to find out what the location was.

Trump then displayed printed copies of articles that he said showed white South Africans who had been killed, saying “death, death” as he flipped through them. Ramaphosa said there was crime in South Africa, and the majority of victims were black. Trump cut him off to say: “the farmers are not black.”

Ramaphosa responded: “These are concerns we are willing to talk to you about.” Trump baselessly claimed white farmers are being “executed” in South Africa after having their land taken away. Ramaphosa replied: “They are not.”

In recent months, Trump has criticised South Africa’s land reform law aimed at redressing the injustices of apartheid and its genocide court case against Israel. He has cancelled aid, expelled South Africa’s ambassador and offered refuge to white minority Afrikaners based on racial discrimination claims that Pretoria says are unfounded.

Trump has accused South Africa of seizing land from white farmers and of fuelling violence against white landowners with “hateful rhetoric and government actions”, an accusation he repeated in the Oval Office today. Pretoria says these claims are inaccurate and “fail to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history”, meaning its long history of domination by white colonialists, enshrined in the apartheid system.

The stakes of today’s meeting are high for South Africa. The United States is its second-biggest trading partner after China, and the aid cut has already resulted in a drop in testing for HIV patients.

- The Guardian