American President Donald Trump signed an executive order to punish South Africa for policies he perceived as anti-Afrikaners. Picture: Jim Watson / POOL / AFP
LEADERS of the Afrikaner community, including farmers, have flatly rejected American President Donald Trump’s call for their members who are aggrieved with South African government policies to move to his country on refugee status.
International society woke up to shocking news that Trump has acted on his threats to punish South Africa for what he called, “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people (Afrikaners) VERY BADLY”.
Trump had on Friday signed an executive order, which stated his country would promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.
“The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take appropriate steps, consistent with law, to prioritise humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.
“Such a plan shall be submitted to the President through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor,” read the order.
During a media briefing on Saturday, the pro-Afrikaner AfriForum and Solidarity Movement rejected Trump’s refugee status offer to Afrikaners.
Talking to this reporter, Afrikaner Foundation executive director Ernst Roets perceived South Africa to be “a very bad policy environment” and that the government “should be called to order for increasingly radicalising the country for three decades”.
“As we want to find solutions within South Africa, we always welcome international pressure being applied to South Africa when it comes to policy ideas.
“But we don’t want to encourage people to leave,” he said.
He said Afrikaners love South Africa because it is their country “and there is no doubt about that”.
“Lots of people (Afrikaners) welcome international pressure put on South Africa, but I know that most people want to stay in South Africa,” said Roets.
There have been suspicions that certain people in South Africa were feeding misinformation around the world about their country, which led to Trump’s hostile attitude toward the country.
However, Roets said Americans, especially in Washington, have been researching for years about South Africa for the White House, therefore, he said: “Americans are very informed about South Africa.”
He said instead of calling for Afrikaners to migrate from their country, the Americans should call for the prosecution of “all corrupt politicians”.
He said there was no way the American government could advise South Africa on the policy issue because South Africa would not listen. He said although the land policy gave the judiciary a final decision over expropriation, this was impractical.
“It is complicated (because) of pressure on the judiciary to prove its commitment to transformation, and they are pressured by politicians through the Judicial Services Commission to be more progressive in their judgment,” said Roets.
AfriForum chief executive officer, Kallie Kriel, said his party was committed to the continent.
“We can only survive as Afrikaners in the southern part of Africa, therefore, we are working hard to find a solution for this situation and we are going to put solutions to President Ramaphosa after a discussion with the USA,” said Kriel.
Both AfriForum and Solidarity Movement said they would soon visit America to plead with Trump not to punish all South Africans through by cancelling aid.
Kriel said it would be a bad decision for Afrikaners to take Trump’s offer.
“Our position would be the price is very high if you do that because you are going to lose your whole cultural identity and your next generation would not be Afrikaners.
“We remain committed to being the people of this country,” he said.
He emphasised that those who accused AfriForum of misinforming Trump were making AfriForum a scapegoat.
He said AfriForum has never communicated its grievances directly to Trump, but it was raised by Afrikaners living in America.
“Afrikaners (in America) can read for themselves and could follow the situation, so it is baseless to create that impression. They are trying to find a scapegoat,” said Kriel.
Besides the Land Act, Afrikaner leaders were also aggrieved with the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, which they said its school language and admission clauses would erode the Afrikaner culture, and they are also unhappy about the government not taking action against certain politicians publicly expressing “hate speech” such as “Kill the Boer”.
bongani.hans@inl.co.za