Donald Trump’s offer to political asylum to white South African minorities follows a long-standing campaign by African groups, promoting “white genocide” conspiracy theory, days after real refugees blocked travel to the US He is lobbying on behalf of Elon Musk’s business. interest.
Last week, Trump issued an executive order misrepresenting new South African law, the expropriation law, as a racist move to persecute white Africans by seizing farms without compensation .
The law addresses deep inequality as a result of apartheid and colonial laws that have produced a white minority that makes up 70% of South Africa’s population, and as a result of white minority who own more than 70% of the farmland. It is intended to do so. of the apartheid system imposed by African-controlled governments. Expropriation is permitted in exceptional circumstances such as abandoned land, but generally “fair and fair” compensation is required.
That didn’t stop Trump from making a mistake: “South Africa confiscates land and treats a certain class of people very badly.”
The president’s order is that white South African farmers were killed for political purposes and caught Trump’s attention during his first term in office to grab their land. It came after years of lobbying by rights groups. Civil rights groups at the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) describe Africaforum leaders as white supremacists of litigation and bonding.
Musk, who grew up in South Africa’s apartheid and is now a Trump inner circle member as head of the “Government’s Ministry of Efficiency,” reflects his claims portraying African farmers as victims of racist murders, and recalls his whites. It suggests that a massacre is imminent.
However, the tech billionaire appears to be using that false narrative to challenge positive behavioral methods that contradict his attempts to sell Starlink satellite networks in South Africa.
Musk has accused South Africa of being an “open racist ownership law,” and pressures the government to exempt Starlink from regulations and major business transactions to include black investors. By demanding, it exalted people of color who were oppressed by apartheid. He rejected the requirement that foreign investors in the country’s communications sector provide 30% of the capital in the South African portion of the company to black-owned companies.
Afriforum campaigns on Musk’s behalf by claiming Starlink is being blocked from doing business in South Africa because it is “too white” and is subject to “stricken racial-based standards.” I’m doing it.
Musk and African Rights Group by linking the killing of white farmers, the Land Redistribution Act and the programme of positive action to a common narrative of persecution sponsored by the ruling African National Congress. , I’m trying to turn history into my mind.
Afriforum calls apartheid “so-called” historical injustice. Its CEO, Curry Criel, also said apartheid is not a crime against humanity.
In May 2018, Kriel and his deputy, Ernst Roetz, lobbyed the Trump administration following the ANC’s decision to redistribute the land, calling it “persecution of South Africa’s minorities.” I traveled to the US to highlight things.
The pair exploited high murder rates in South Africa, including white farmers, to characterize the murder of African landowners as racially targeting. They also played the legacy of President Robert Mugabe in neighbouring Zimbabwe in support of an unpopular regime by unleashing violence against white landowners in the early 2000s and redistributed the land.
However, the deaths of white farmers in South Africa are not political targets by the government, but are the result of the country’s high crime rates. The murdered farmers had not confiscated the land since.
In 2018, Criel and Roett met Trump’s national security adviser, staff of Senator Ted Cruz, and John Bolton, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Roett appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program, claiming that African farmers were “torturing and dying on farms at an extraordinary proportion.” Carlson tweeted a clip of the interview in the caption. And no one is brave enough to talk about it. ”
Trump tweeted to then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after hearing instructions to “scrutinize the seizures and expropriation of South African land farms and the massive killing of farmers.”
The president went on to call it “at least it’s a massive human rights violation and it’s happening for everyone to see.”
Other far-right South Africans pushed a similar message claiming that white people were victimized by the post-apartheid democratic order. “Simon Roche, head of Suidlanders, a group that argued that Protestant Christian South African minorities prepares for the upcoming violent revolution, said that white South Africans “in hopes of a massacre against them.” “We hope there will be,” he appeared on Alex Jones’ infowars channel. .
Afriforum officials also traveled to New York last July and launched an African foundation to “represent African causes internationally.” Roett was appointed to lead the foundation and appeared as a guest speaker at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, addressing young Republicans in New York, visiting the U.S. Capitol for television appearances.
The Africanar Foundation and Afriforme are both part of the South African solidarity movement and are led by Roats. The Solidarity Movement said last week it hopes to hold discussions with the Trump administration in the near future and hold a meeting at the White House.
In September, Musk’s fight with the South African government over Starlink was ratcheted up, and Afriforum launched a campaign on his behalf, claiming that Black Empowerment Act is vulnerable to attack by closing its satellite network from South Africa I did.
“By banning Starlink from operating in South Africa due to racist standards, (the government) is taking away rural communities from reliable alternatives that could save lives,” he said. Ta.
The statement ends with “Stop racism and fight alongside Afriforum.”
The day after Trump signed the executive order, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa called for masks to ease the queue. The country’s communications minister, Solly Malatsi, has proposed a Starlink exemption from the Black Empowerment rules, but is another member of the government’s object and cannot view Musk favorably after Trump’s intervention.
Musk and Afriforum are not the only ones who have Trump’s ears in South Africa. Other high-tech billionaires close to the president were also born in a country that included other members of the Paypal Mafia, who grew up under apartheid.
Trump also regularly golfs with Gary Player, a well-known South African golfer who declared his support for apartheid and his architect Henrik Verd in the 1960s. The players also described the country’s black population as “alien wild bars.” Trump awarded players the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020.
In December, the players took South African mining entrepreneur Leon Bernard with him for a match with Trump, who was photographed with Musk.
Joel Pollak, editor of Alt-Right’s publication Breitbart, also born in South Africa, has been turned over as a possible ambassador for the country. Pollak told South African site News24 that Trump’s attack on the ANC government was not unexpected, and that “the new president has a consistent, long-standing desire to force change in South Africa.”
