AfriForum welcomes president’s plan to meddle

Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni

Lobby group AfriForum yesterday welcomed US President Donald Trump’s tweet about his plan to get his administration to look into the murders of white South African farmers and land grabs.

AfriForum has gone to great lengths to highlight these issues in the international arena in their campaign against the expropriation of land without compensation.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to the tweet, has been asked to “closely study the South African land and farm seizures and expropriations and large-scale killing of farmers”, a move the SA government deemed “unfortunate”.

Earlier this year, the Australian government stopped just short of offering refugee status to white SA farmers.

This came after a series of news stories and documentaries were aired depicting their plight under a government that was not only allowing them to be murdered in large numbers, but was also planning to enact a law to strip them of their land.

While Trump’s announcement raised fears that SA could face economic sanctions if it did not backtrack on land expropriation, AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said the organisation did not want the international community to disinvest, but instead for the threat of disinvestment to scare the government out of proceeding with the proposed expropriation law.

He believed that should it be enacted, SA would face disinvestment anyway.

“The best way to stop that is if the US government warns SA beforehand of that implication. So, this is the last stop that we are now engaging in.

“We are taking our cause outside to get international support and, hopefully, the ANC will reconsider and we are hopeful that [Trump’s tweet] will play a role.”

Asked if the group felt directly responsible for the Trump administration’s planned intervention, Kriel replied: “We believe our visit to the US played a role.”