US President Donald Trump held a contentious meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday, when he repeated allegations that he and members of his administration have previously levelled, suggesting that white South African farmers are being systematically killed.
To prove his point, Trump showed the South African leader online videos, speeches and news articles.
“Generally, they’re white farmers and they’re fleeing South Africa, and …. it’s a very sad thing to see. But I hope we can have an explanation of that because I know you don’t want that,” the US president said, as the visiting delegation looked on in disbelief.
Tensions have been escalating between the United States and South Africa since Trump took office this year, with Washington cutting off aid to Africa’s largest economy and sending back its ambassador last month.
But how true were Trump’s claims during the meeting in the Oval Office? Here is a fact check:
Trump repeated claims that there’s a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa: Is there?
No, there is not. Suggestions by Trump that a white genocide may be taking place have been repeatedly debunked by South African officials and independent analysts — and by data.
“So we take [refugees] from many locations if we feel there’s persecution or genocide going on,” the US president said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
“And we had a lot of people, I must tell you Mr. President [Ramaphosa], we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they’ve seen this – generally they’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa.”
Earlier this month, 59 white South Africans arrived in the US as part of a refugee programme set up by Trump to offer sanctuary to them.
Trump’s claim echoes white nationalist beliefs that legislation in South Africa aimed at rectifying apartheid is now, in fact, discriminatory against the Afrikaner community.
Right-wing organisations, such as the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, have been championing a narrative that Afrikaners are under an existential threat.
The facts suggest otherwise.
“There is no credible evidence to support the claim that white farmers in South Africa are being systematically targeted as part of a campaign of genocide,” Anthony Kaziboni, a senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera.
While South Africa does not break down crime statistics by race, according to the most recent data from April to December 2024 provided by the government, there were 19,696 murders during this period.
Only 36 of those murders were connected to farms, and only seven of the victims were farmers. The number of white victims is unclear. The remaining 29 victims were farm workers, who are predominantly Black in South Africa.
The scale of farm murders captured by the South African government’s data broadly matches the data of even AfriForum. The group says that 50 and 49 farm murders took place in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
“Genocide is a grave term, legally defined by the UN as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. That threshold is not met in the case of South Africa’s farm attacks,” Kaziboni said.
White South Africans constitute 7 percent of the nation’s population but own more than 70 percent of its land. They also have about 20 times more wealth than Blacks on average. In corporate South Africa, white individuals occupy 62 percent of top management positions, while 17 percent of leadership roles are held by Black managers.
Are there white ‘burial sites’ on the side of a South African highway?
The White House staff played a video clip at the Oval Office that Trump insisted showed “burial sites of thousands of white farmers” with white crucifixes lined up along a local highway.
When Ramaphosa asked him where the footage was from, saying, “This, I’ve never seen”, Trump claimed it was in South Africa.
Trump was right — the visuals were from South Africa. But he was also wrong — they weren’t images of burial sites.
The images had been shared by Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier this year, too, as evidence that a white genocide was taking place.
However, local records and a report at the time from the South African Institute of Race Relations confirmed that crosses were symbolically planted on the side of the road during a 2020 protest related to the killings of white South African couple Glenn and Vida Rafferty on a farm.
They were not gravestones, as Trump falsely asserted.
According to South Africa’s Transvaal Agricultural Union — a group sympathetic to Afrikaner farmers — the total number of farm murders in South Africa between 1990 and 2024 stood at 2,229, which included 1,363 white farmers, 529 relatives of white farmers, 38 white workers, 30 white visitors, 88 Black farmers, 61 relatives of Black farmers, 188 Black workers, and seven Black visitors.
On average, 56 white South Africans were killed on farms per year during the 35-year period, according to this data.
“These crimes are brutal and concerning, but they stem from high levels of violent crime and poor rural policing, not from a state-sponsored or group-led intent to annihilate a racial group,” Kaziboni said.
Trump claims no justice for killers of white farmers
“You do allow them to take the land. And when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them,” Trump complained to Ramaphosa.
A major topic of contention between the two countries is the recent passing of a land expropriation law by South Africa, which Trump has denounced as “persecution” of the country’s rich white minority.
The law allows the government to seize land from any private owner, white or otherwise, for public purposes and public interests. While the law spells out fair compensation, it also allows for seizure without compensation in certain instances.
However, unlike what Trump claimed, the law makes it clear that only the government – not vigilantes – can take land from farmers.
And Trump is inaccurate in his claims that “nothing happens” to those who carry out farm murders. In November 2022, two men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Glenn and Vida Rafferty, the couple whose death sparked the 2020 protest that Trump falsely claimed showed a line of gravesites by the highway.
What about South African politicians chanting ‘Kill the Boer’?
Trump’s team also showed a video of Julius Malema, an opposition figure and leader of the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, singing the anti-apartheid song Dubul’ ibhunu (“Kill the Boer”) at a rally.
“Boer” is the Afrikaans word for farmer, and on one level, it simply means farmer, of any race.
However, the title is indeed often taken to mean “Kill the Afrikaner”. The song emerged during the 1980s, as opposition to more than three decades of apartheid rule spilled onto the streets of South Africa’s townships. The title of the song is often also translated as “Kill the white farmer”.
Ramaphosa told Trump that he has repeatedly condemned Malema and his statements, which do not reflect the official government position.
Meanwhile, Malema has repeatedly stated – both in court and in interviews – that “we are not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now”.
Anti-apartheid veterans argue that the lyrics are not an incitement to violence against white people, explaining that Boer symbolises the broader concept of an oppressor.
Courts in South Africa have also ruled that the song does not constitute hate speech.
Kaziboni said that these rulings “have been controversial”.
“Some fear they may leave vulnerable groups without sufficient recourse when threatened,” he said.
However, the University of Johannesburg researcher said, the courts and the South African government appear to be trying to find a balance between “freedom of expression, historical redress, and social cohesion”.
“The courts [have] emphasised the need to understand the song within its historical and political context, not as a literal incitement to violence, but as a symbolic act of resistance embedded in the country’s liberation struggle,” Kaziboni said.
‘Death, death, horrible death’: Trump presents sheaf of articles
Sitting next to Ramaphosa, Trump rifled through a series of articles that he said showed further proof of white farmers’ persecution.
“Death of people, death, death, death, horrible death, death,” Trump said as he showcased the news stories in front of reporters.
However, in the stack of papers was a blog post with an image from the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showing Red Cross workers in protective gear handling body bags.
Kaziboni said that during a time of “rising global misinformation”, Trump’s framing of South Africa “misrepresents both the facts and the deeper history”.
Source: Aljazeera
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