US President Donald Trump’s offer to resettle ‘White South Africans’ in his country has not been welcomed by the Afrikaner community.
Trump has without evidence claimed that there was racial discrimination against them in South Africa citing a land act passed by the African National Congress led government of Cyril Ramaphosa. The law replaces the country’s Expropriation Act of 1975, which was put in place before South Africa gained democracy in 1994.
Trump and has gone ahead to issue an executive order cutting off aid to South Africa.
But reacting to the development Saturday Kallie Kriel, CEO of Afriforum, a group that promotes the interests of Afrikaans speakers, said: “We don’t want to move elsewhere, and we are not going to ask our children now to move to another country.
“We have interests of future generations and to make sure our culture is passed down to future generations; that cannot be done abroad.
“We are not European. We are indigenous to this country and are going nowhere,” he told a joint media briefing with the trade union Solidarity Movement.
Meanwhile, South Africa fired back, accusing the Trump administration of misinterpreting its new laws
“It is of great concern that the foundational premise of this order lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid,” the country’s Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said in a statement.
“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 favour among decision-makers in the United States of America.”
White South Africans currently account for less than 8% of the country’s population.
