Land: Duck it’s Donald
THE ANC has slammed US President Donald Trump, saying he is a rightwinger who undermines the US and its important role in global politics by interfering in domestic affairs of sovereign countries.
ANC head of Presidency Zizi Kodwa told Independent Media that the governing party was going ahead with the expropriation of land without compensation.
This is after AgriSA, a major player in the agricultural industry, committed to work with the government on land reform.
“He (Trump) undermines the US by his own conduct and behaviour, and Americans have got themselves to blame for electing a person like this. He is part of the right-wing resurgence throughout the world which is using migration, land and the economy to say people must accept the status quo and not challenge it,” Kodwa said.
He said the controversial US president was ignorant of the apartheid experience, which included land dispossession.
“This is about the dignity of the dispossessed and about establishing certainty for the future, because policy certainty for the future is tied with ownership of the land.
“You cannot talk about certainty when you have so many people who are landless. Trump is not the president of the world; he is the president of America and he cannot interfere in the domestic affairs of another country,” he said.
Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he had instructed his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers”.
He was quoting a Fox News report that the “South African government is now seizing land from white farmers”.
The report came after an editorial by a US think-tank, The Cato Institute, called on Trump to warn Pretoria against amending the constitution to allow expropriation without compensation, and suspend it from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), like Zimbabwe, if it goes ahead.
Agoa is a piece of US legislation aimed at assisting sub-Saharan African economies through allowing them to export duty-free products to the US market.
The rand received timely support from the government’s assurance that the country’s inclusion in Agoa was not at risk, after it weakened to R14.47 following Trump’s comment.
The US is one of South Africa’s biggest trading partners. According to the website of the Office of the US Trade Representative, South Africa was the US’s 42nd largest goods export market in 2016, importing goods worth $4.6 billion. In turn, South Africa exported goods valued at $6.8bn to the US in 2016.
Analysts warned that South Africa’s diplomatic relations with America were on life support as diplomatic officials from the two countries scurried around, scheduling meetings in a bid to discuss Trump’s comments.
Earlier, Deputy President David Mabuza dismissed AfriForum and other organisations using the land issue for racial polarisation.
“We would like to discourage those who are using this sensitive and emotive issue of land to divide us as South Africans by distorting our land reform measures to the international community, and spreading falsehoods that our white farmers are facing the onslaught from their own government. This is far from the truth,” Mabuza said while addressing the AgriSA Land Summit at Bela Bela in Limpopo yesterday.
Mabuza said the land issue was sensitive due to the country’s history of dispossessions, adding that it was at the heart of ordinary people’s struggles for economic participation.
AgriSA president Dan Kriek said the country was currently in a dilemma due to historical injustices of the past, which needed to be addressed.
EFF leader Julius Malema also weighed in, saying his party was unshaken by Trump’s comments.
Malema warned that Trump’s reaction to the country’s land debate was one of many threats to be expected from those who opposed reform.
“It is a war. We must be prepared for Donald Trump and all of them. We are not scared of them.
“Actually, we are more determined after the Donald Trump tweet to expropriate our land without compensation,” Malema said.
“More backlash is going to come. If South Africans are not ready to expropriate land because they are scared of sanctions, they are scared of backlash – don’t vote EFF,” Malema said at a press briefing. – Additional reporting by Kabelo Khumalo and Noni Mokati
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Nomvula Mokonyane has allayed fears that US President Donald Trump’s comments will result in the collapse of an important trade deal with South Africa.
She said there was no threat to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
The Department of Trade and Industry has not come out on what will happen to Agoa and possible trade tariffs in the wake of Trump’s utterances.
On Wednesday Trump posted on Twitter that South Africans were “seizing land from white farmers”. He also said he had asked the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study” the “the large-scale killing of white farmers”.
Some of the parties warned in Parliament yesterday that they would not be deterred by Trump’s threat and insisted on the expropriation of land without compensation.
Mokonyane said: “This should not be a threat to Agoa. Our international relations, Brand SA and the Department of Trade and Industry have a responsibility to communicate with the world, not through third parties but ourselves.”
This was in reference to the campaign by AfriForum in the US where they raised this matter.
She said the government welcomed the fact that AgriSA was willing to take part in this process and believe this would resolve many issues.
Mokonyane denied that South Africa would follow in the footsteps of Zimbabwe, whoseland reforms in 2000 turned catastrophic.
She said she refused to have South Africa compared with any other country. “We have a democratic government.
“When a decision is made it will be made in the interest of South Africa,” said Mokonyane.
She said they would use diplomatic channels to deal with the comments by Trump.
Mokonyane said a similar thing had been done a few months ago when Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he would fasttrack the visas of South African white farmers because of “violence and land seizures” in the country.