President Cyril Ramaphosa has referred to as a gaggle of 59 white South Africans who’ve moved to the US to resettle “cowards”, saying “they’re going to be again quickly”.
The group of Afrikaners arrived in the US on Monday after President Donald Trump granted them refugee standing, saying they confronted racial discrimination.
However Ramaphosa mentioned those that needed to depart weren’t proud of efforts to handle the inequities of the apartheid previous, terming their relocation a “unhappy second for them”.
“As South Africans, we’re resilient. We do not run away from our issues. We should keep right here and resolve our issues. Once you run away you’re a coward, and that is an actual cowardly act,” he added.
Trump and his shut ally, South Africa-born Elon Musk, have mentioned there was a “genocide” of white farmers in South Africa – a claim that has been widely discredited.
The US has additionally accused the South African authorities of seizing land from white farmers with out paying compensation.
Greater than 30 years after the top of a long time of rule by South Africa’s white minority, black farmers personal solely a small fraction of the nation’s finest farmland, with the bulk nonetheless in white arms, resulting in anger over the sluggish tempo of change.
In January President Ramaphosa signed a controversial law allowing the government to seize privately owned land with out compensation in sure circumstances, when it’s deemed “equitable and within the public curiosity”.
However the authorities says no land has but been seized below the act.
Trump has supplied to resettle the white Afrikaners, descendants of largely Dutch settlers, saying they have been fleeing a “horrible state of affairs” in South Africa.
Talking on Monday at an agricultural exhibition within the Free State province, Ramaphosa mentioned the Afrikaners have been shifting to the US as a result of they weren’t “favourably disposed” to efforts geared toward addressing the nation’s challenges.
“In case you take a look at all nationwide teams in our nation, black and white, they’ve stayed on this nation as a result of it is our nation and we should not run away from our issues. We should keep right here and resolve our issues,” Ramaphosa mentioned.
“I can guess you that they are going to be again quickly as a result of there isn’t any nation like South Africa,” he added.
His “coward” comment angered some social media customers, who condemned it as an insult to aggrieved white South Africans.
The group of Afrikaners have been welcomed by prime US officers who claimed they’d been “residing below a shadow of violence and terror” in South Africa.
“Welcome to the land of the free,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau mentioned as he acquired the South Africans who landed at Dulles airport close to Washington DC on Monday.
Some held younger youngsters and waved small American flags within the arrival space adorned with crimson, white and blue balloons on the partitions.
Earlier on Monday, President Ramaphosa advised an Africa CEO discussion board in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, that he had lately advised Trump throughout a cellphone name the US evaluation of the state of affairs was “not true”.
“We’re the one nation on the continent the place the colonisers got here to remain and we’ve got by no means pushed them out of our nation,” he added, dismissing claims Afrikaners have been being persecuted.
Ramaphosa mentioned dozens of white South Africans who arrived within the US on Monday “do not match the invoice” for refugees.
In response to the US embassy in South Africa, to be thought-about eligible for the refugee resettlement scheme, somebody have to be:
- Of South African nationality
- Afrikaner or from a racial minority
- Capable of cite an incident of previous persecution or concern of persecution sooner or later.
The South African chief mentioned he was resulting from meet his US counterpart quickly concerning the difficulty.
Trump has threatened to boycott the forthcoming G20 summit in South Africa until the “state of affairs is taken care of”.
