By Press Agency
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cut U.S. financial assistance amounting to multimillion of Dollars to South Africa, the White House said on Friday.
Though US also cited disapproval of its land policy and of its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Washington’s ally Israel, South Africa on Saturday is unbowed over it sees as US “propaganda” and “misinformation.”
“We are concerned by what seems to be a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation. It is disappointing to observe that such narratives seem to have found favor among decision-makers in the United States of America,” South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
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The United States allocated nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent U.S. government data shows.
South Africa’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the executive order “lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognize South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.”
The White House said Washington will also formulate a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.
It said U.S. officials would take steps to prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program for Afrikaners in South Africa, who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers.
South Africa’s foreign ministry said: “It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the U.S. for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the U.S. from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship.”
Trump has said, without citing evidence, that South Africa is confiscating land and that certain classes of people are treated “very badly.”
South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who is close to Trump, has said white South Africans have been the victims of “racist ownership laws.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who signed into law a bill last month aimed at making it easier for the state to expropriate land in the public interest, has defended the policy and said the government had not confiscated any land. The policy was aimed at evening out racial disparities in land ownership in the Black-majority nation, he said.
Ramaphosa has also said South Africa “will not be bullied.”
The country’s British imperial masters gave most farmland to whites. In 1950, the Afrikaner National Party passed a law taking 85% of territory for themselves and kicking 3.5 million Black people off their ancestral homelands.
In the 30 years that the African National Congress has been in power, some land restitution has happened under a “willing buyer, willing seller” model, but white landowners still possess three-quarters of South Africa’s freehold farmland. This contrasts with 4% owned by Black people.
Afrikaners Oppose Trumps resettlement plan
AfriForum, a right-wing lobby group, and the mainly white Solidarity Movement expressed appreciation for Trump’s recognition of “injustice” against Afrikaners but regretted the withdrawal of aid.
“We did not and will not ask for sanctions against South Africa or that funds for vulnerable people be cut off by the U.S. Government,” said Flip Buys, Chairperson of the Solidarity Movement of which AfriForum is a part.
“We believe that ordinary South Africans should not bear the cost of diplomatic disputes and of the ANC’s policies.”
Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, said if Afrikaners became refugees in the U.S., their cultural identity would be lost, a risk they would not take.
“We are indigenous to this country and we are going nowhere,” he said.
Washington has complained about the case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, where it accused Israel of genocide over its military offensive in Gaza.
South Africa was the first country to take Israel to the ICJ over its genocidal war on Gaza, which stopped last month due to an ongoing ceasefire between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza due to Israeli bombardment since October 7, 2023.
Israel denied the allegations, saying it acted in self-defense following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militants.
