For decades, some members of the white minority of African have tried to convince anyone and everyone who would listen to that they were true victims in South Africa after Apartheid.
They made claims about the mass murder of their people and widespread land by the Black Government to insist that they seek retaliation for the sins of the Government of Apartheid under the guidance of African. Their stories were false or great excessivelyBut this did not prevent them from being widely reinforced and repeated online.
Africans, an ethnic group that came from the European – above all the Dutch – colonizers, found the champion of their causes in President Trump, which led to the moment few could have imagined.
Mr. Trump on Friday put the weight of American influence behind the hot disputed claim that Africa “victims of unjust racial discrimination” are the victim Executive command to allow them to migrate to the United States as refugees and stop help in South Africa.
This move welcomed the disgusting in South Africa, a majority-Black nation in which more than 90 percent of the population came from racial groups persecuted by a racist Apartheid regime. These groups – black, colored and Indian – remain statistically far behind the white minority to almost every economic extent.
There were terrible killings of white farmers, the focus of African complaints, but police statistics suggested that they make a very small proportion of killings in the country.
It is not clear whether Mr Trump has been influenced by Elon Musk’s interest in South Africa, now one of his close advisers, who was born there and grew up and was sharply critical of his government.
For Africans, which make up about 4 percent of the population, Mr. Trump’s action was the highlight of the years of international lobbying.
“What happened last night is probably the most significant international action” South Africa since 1994, when Apartheid’s regime lost power, Ernst Roets, Executive Director of the African Foundation, said advocate groups, said on Saturday.
Mr. Roets has made several trips to Washington over the years to meet with legislatives and research tanks, and has another long -planned trip in two weeks, he said. His organization did not meet any officials in the second Trump administration and was not directly involved in the executive order, he said. But they talked to people in the orbit of Mr. Trump and raised an international awareness of their thing, he said.
“We did some things wrong, but each community did some things wrong,” Mr. Roets said about African. “We had the feeling that we fascinated and blamed for everyone. The fact that there is now a recognition is something that I think a lot of people will welcome.”
South African government officials were a little blinded by Mr. Trump’s command, learning about it through news, said Ebrahim Rasool, Ambassador of South Africa in Washington.
Mr. Trump began to focus publicly on South Africa last Sunday, with posts on social media and comments to reporters, suggesting that the land of the country seized the country in white.
President Cyril Ramaphos of South Africa last month signed a law that allows the Government to take private land, in limited circumstances, without compensation for the owner. However, legal scientists say such attacks are subject to court supervision and in most cases the government will compensate for land owners acquired for public purposes.
Law supporters say that it is partly needed to remove the imbalance created by the history of whites who have taken control of most of the country, while black ownership was limited by force and law.
After Mr. Trump gave his comments, Mr. Musk asked Mr. Ramaphos in the post on X, “Why do you have open racist laws on ownership?”
Vincent Magwenya, Mr. Ramaphos spokesman, said: “We have never witnessed such an escalation of diplomatic tensions,” adding that the questions he asked which Mr. Trump asked were “lined with complete lies and distortions about our country.”
Mr. Ramaphos spoke with Mr. Male last week and was “emphasized by saying that we do not have racist laws,” said Mr. Magwenya. But Mr. Musk continued to insist That whites in South Africa are persecuted.
Kallie Kriel, Executive Director of Afiforum, an African Rights Organization, said her own actions of South Africa have alienated US leaders, especially ITSA accusation before the International Court of Justice that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
As he rejected the claims that the white South Africans were victims of widespread killings, He cited several laws he said they were aiming for African. One law enables government greater control over the language of teaching in schools, which may be different from place to place, and some African think that this will limit the use of Africans in classrooms.
“It’s a direct threat to our cultural existence,” Mr. Kriel said.
Melanie Verwoerd, a former ambassador to South Africa, said that the focus on the rights of Africa had directed the history of people who had benefited from the 17th century from the country that their ancestors took from blacks. She said she spoke “as a white person and as an African,” adding that it was “categorically” false that the white South Africans were persecuted.
“The vast majority of the poor in this country remains black,” Mrs. Verwoerd said. “If any group is treated badly or if there are misuse of human rights to discuss, these are actually blacks, not whites.”
Last year, Mr. Ramaphos met with Mr. Masca twice to talk about bringing his jobs, most notably the Satellite Starlink Communication System, South Africa. In these meetings, Mr. Musk did not express the concern because the whites were harassed by South Africa, Mr. Magwenya said.
Instead, Mr. Musk’s main concern was the demands of South Africa to give foreign companies to the ownership of the Black South Africans or other historically endangered groups, said Mr. Magwenya. Mr. Musk told the president that he would take care that it would set a bad precedent for other markets that manages the Starlink, Mr. Magwenya said.
Mr. Musk is primarily English, not African, origin. The tensions are full between white, English who speak English and African, which are often stereotypated as more blue collar and less sophisticated.
Africa tend to have a darker view of the population as a whole. In the 2023 survey of the Human Science Research Council, 79 percent of Africans said they were dissatisfied with the democracy of the country, and 47 percent said they belong to a group that suffers discrimination – a higher rate than any other group.
The white population, which is now about 4.5 million, has been constantly declining for decades in 1985, a net migration of 700,000 whites, according to South Africa statistics, an official government agency. But there were no signs – at least so far – to make Africa tend to emigrate massively into the United States.
Mr. Roets and Afiphorum leaders said they wanted to stay in South Africa in order to be better. They said they plan to ask Trump’s administration instead of reducing all funding in South Africa, to invest in organizations that help in African communities.
Among the primary complaints of Africans is to face the violence in the farm and that the government discriminates them with policies that seek to give preference to the Black South Africans in areas such as business and ownership of land. But the proponents of a race based on race claim that, since Apartheid used the race to oppress and impoverish the black population, the rules needed by cancer required.
“Not completely devoid of all truths,” said Albert Grundlingh, a professor of history at Stellenbosch and African University, said the concern of African. “To say that as a group they are now lowered and have no perspective, it’s an exaggeration.”
Bennie Van Zyl, General Director of the Transvaal Agricultural Union in South Africa, said his colleagues Africa want black farmers to be successful.
“But the Government seems to be the issue of land to the race,” he said. “It’s not about the race for us – it’s a success.”
Reporting contributed Jeffrey Moyo from Harara, Zimbabwe.
