US President Donald Trump on Wednesday met South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at Whit House and said he was seeking an explanation from the South African President regarding unfounded allegations of “genocide” targeting white Afrikaners.
“Generally, they’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa, and it’s a very sad thing to see. But I hope we can have an explanation of that, because I know you don’t want that,” Trump said.
Ramaphosa, however, disputed President Trump’s claim during their meeting in the Oval Office.
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“If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture, he would not be with me,” CNN quoted Ramaphosa as saying, referring to White members of his delegation, which included South African golfers, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els, and his country’s agriculture minister, John Henry Steenhuisen.
Ramaphosa urged Trump to “(listen) to their stories, to their perspective.”
Immediately afterward, Ramaphosa sat in uneasy silence as Trump directed his aides to play a short documentary composed of various video clips, including footage of South African politician Julius Malema.
Trump then remarked that the videos showed aerial footage of white crosses marking the graves of murdered white farmers.
Ramaphosa responded by saying he had never seen such images before.
“I’d like to know where that is because this I’ve never seen,” The Guardian quoted him as saying.
Trump admitted he wasn’t sure what he expected Ramaphosa to do about the footage they had just watched.
He then held up printed news articles about white farmers he claimed were recently killed, saying as he flipped through them: “Death, death.”
Ramaphosa clarified that what they had just seen did not reflect official government policy.
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“Our government policy is completely against what (Trump was describing),” The Guardian quoted Trump as saying.
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