JOHANNESBURG — President Donald Trump’s executive order penalizing South Africa launched on Friday has hit a uncooked nerve within the African nation. The order primarily aimed toward land seizures comes as Pretoria has confronted ongoing U.S. criticisms that it has operated in opposition to U.S. pursuits, together with its assist of the Palestinians within the Worldwide Felony Court docket and its heat relations with China, Russia and Iran.
Friday’s govt order said partially, “In stunning disregard of its residents’ rights, the Republic of South Africa lately enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, to allow the federal government of South Africa to grab ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property with out compensation.”
“It’s the coverage of the US that, so long as South Africa continues these unjust and immoral practices that hurt our Nation:
(a) the US shall not present support or help to South Africa; and
(b) the US shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, together with racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
TRUMP FREEZES AID TO SOUTH AFRICA, PROMOTES RESETTLEMENT OF REFUGEES FACING RACE DISCRIMINATION
President Donald Trump takes half in a signing ceremony within the President’s Room on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025. (Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Pictures)
Friday’s govt order pointedly took goal at Pretoria’s overseas coverage: “South Africa has taken aggressive positions in the direction of the US and its allies, together with accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide within the Worldwide Court docket of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop business, army, and nuclear preparations … America can not assist the federal government of South Africa’s fee of rights violations in its nation or its undermining United States overseas coverage, which poses nationwide safety threats to our Nation, our allies, our African companions, and our pursuits.”
On Saturday the South African government responded, “It’s of nice concern that the foundational premise of this order lacks factual accuracy and fails to acknowledge South Africa’s profound and painful historical past of colonialism and apartheid,” Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for the nation’s Worldwide Relations Division, posted on X.
Phiri added that “we’re involved by what appears to be a marketing campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed toward misrepresenting our nice nation. It’s disappointing to look at that such narratives appear to have discovered favor amongst decision-makers in the US of America.”
Farmers examine present sheep in Philippolis, South Africa, on Nov. 1, 2024. (PAUL BOTES/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Though it misplaced its majority in final 12 months’s elections, the African Nationwide Congress (ANC) remains to be the primary celebration in South Africa’s current authorities of nationwide unity. The celebration’s secretary common reacted to the provide that White Afrikaners can go grow to be U.S. residents by posting a photograph on X. In it, a black man is standing by an open door and gesturing with each arms outdoors the door, suggesting Afrikaners ought to depart.
The federal government has claimed Whites of all backgrounds, not simply Afrikaners, nonetheless personal roughly 70% of South Africa’s land. The federal government is on file saying the Expropriation Act will solely be used to take land wanted for public functions – similar to for a brand new faculty – from folks of any shade when the proprietor refuses to promote, and even then there could be “truthful and equitable compensation.”
Emma Powell, the worldwide relations spokesperson for South Africa’s second-largest celebration within the nation’s authorities of nationwide unity, the Democratic Alliance, advised Fox Information Digital that “for many years, the DA has opposed the ANC’s race-based insurance policies. These insurance policies have benefited the political elite whereas the overwhelming majority of South Africans proceed to languish in poverty.”
SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL LAND SEIZURE BILL, ERODING PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, left, Chinese language President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are proven in the course of the BRICS summit on Oct. 23, 2024. (ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
She continued that the DA “can be pursuing authorized motion to safeguard property rights. It’s now time for the ANC to re-evaluate each their home and overseas coverage positions, which actively undermine our nationwide pursuits.”
Powell advised Fox Information Digital, her celebration will ship “a high-level delegation to Washington D.C. in coming weeks to have interaction with decision-makers. The DA stays dedicated to defending non-public property rights, fostering financial development, and strengthening diplomatic ties with the U.S.”
Afrikaners, descendants of predominantly Dutch settlers who landed in Southern Africa in 1652, grew to become the nation’s rulers and are extensively believed to have developed the apartheid system that separated Whites and Blacks, treating Blacks as second-class residents.
U.S. and South African flags are proven at Union Buildings in Pretoria. (STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
In a press release launched on Saturday, AfriForum, a civil rights group that largely represents Afrikaners, expressed “nice appreciation” for Trump’s motion, which it mentioned was “a direct results of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his authorities’s irresponsible actions and insurance policies.”
It continued, “Nevertheless, the civil rights group and its sister establishments within the Solidarity Motion stay dedicated to Afrikaners’ future on the southern tip of Africa and demand that pressing options should due to this fact be discovered for the injustices dedicated by the South African authorities in opposition to Afrikaners and different cultural communities within the nation.”
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Financial Freedom Fighters chief Julius Malema greets supporters in Pretoria, South Africa, on Feb. 2, 2019. (PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
One of many extra outspoken and excessive members of the federal government of nationwide unity, Julius Malema, head of the South African minority celebration Financial Freedom Fighters, mentioned on X, “In mild of the aggression by the USA in opposition to South Africa, we should as a nation critically take into account strengthening ties with Russia, China and nations who belong to (the worldwide commerce physique) BRICS to keep away from pointless confrontations with maniacs similar to Donald Trump.”
Malema has been taken to courtroom on hate crime prices. In a single occasion, he sang the genocidal anti-apartheid wrestle track “Kill the Boer, the farmer,” referring to the White descendants of Dutch settlers or “Boers” in South Africa.
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