Keep off SA affairs: Malema
JOHANNESBURG. — Economic Freedom Fighters commander-in-chief Julius Malema has issued a stern warning to the US to stay out of South Africa’s domestic affairs.
“Furthermore, we want to send a strong message to the USA authorities, just like we did with the Australian authorities to stay out of South Africa’s domestic affairs,” he said during the party’s press briefing in Johannesburg yesterday. This followed a tweet by US President Donald Trump on Wednesday where he said on his Twitter handle @realDonaldTrump: “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.” Trump added in a messaged tagged to news organisations @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews also claimed, “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.”
Meanwhile, Afrikaner rights group Afriforum celebrated the tweet by Trump claiming yesterday that its trip to the US and talks with people and think tanks close to the US leader had partly influenced his position.
Responding within hours, the government angrily said: “South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.”
“South Africa will speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation,” it said on its official Twitter account.”
Meanwhile, Malema warned people to not play the “public opinion game” in relation to the land question, saying the land debate was an emotive issue for many South Africans in which people’s dignity was at stake. “Our people’s hope cannot be subjected to a contest . . . ,” Malema added.
He said they were more determined than ever in their call for expropriation of land without compensation after Trump’s tweets. “We must put it on record that Donald, pathological liar, Trump, we are not scared of you and your USA.
“There’s no white genocide here, there is a black genocide in the US, they are killing black people...,” Malema said.
In a related matter, agricultural industry body Agbiz rejected Trump’s tweet claiming that the SA government is seizing land from white farmers saying he doesn’t know what goes on in South Africa. “In the critical time that we are in now, we don’t need volatile statements like that,” Agbiz chairperson Francois Strydom told fin24. The Department of International Relations and Cooperation was expected to meet the US acting ambassador to Pretoria, Jessye Lapenn yesterday, and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu will talk to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo through diplomatic channels.
Trump’s tweets come in the same week that Agbiz and Agri SA met with senior ANC leaders, who the two industry bodies said committed not to institute land grabs and promised the protection of productive agricultural land will remain a priority.
Strydom called the week’s meetings “very productive” and referred to the land summit currently underway, organised by Lanbouweekblad and Agri SA in Bela-Bela Limpopo where Deputy President David Mabuza said land reform “must not result in social fractures and racial polarisation”.
“This is a historic moment to my mind, we’ve reached a positive atmosphere, we are talking solutions and finding each other,” Strydom said.
Executive director at Agri SA, Omri van Zyl, echoed this message saying “it’s not like we’re falling off a cliff here”.
“Hopefully this will ignite us to get together and find solutions,” Van Zyl said.
Agbiz represents agricultural businesses in the second layer of the agriculture sector, such as financing, logistics and fertiliser. As elections due in 2019 approach, President Cyril Ramaphosa has intervened to accelerate land reform in order to “undo a grave historical injustice” against the black majority during colonialism and the apartheid era. Even though apartheid ended in 1994, the white community that makes up eight percent of the population “possess 72 percent of farms” compared to “only four percent” in the hands of black people who make up four-fifths of the population, President Ramaphosa said.
The imbalance stems from purchases and seizures during the colonial era that were then enshrined in law during apartheid. Seeking to redress the situation, President Ramaphosa recently announced that the constitution would be amended to allow for land to be seized and redistributed without compensation to the current owners.
Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton sparked a diplomatic row with Pretoria in March after he said that Canberra should give “special attention” to white South African farmers seeking asylum because they faced a “horrific” situation.