 "Why does Donald Trump want to give Afrikaners refugee status? Is Elon Musk behind it?")
On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting all funding to South Africa, fulfilling his campaign promise to punish the nation for what he saw as a human rights violation against a white minority people.
White Afrikaners, who are descended from Dutch and other European colonists, were “blatantly” discriminated against by a land expropriation law that South Africa just approved, according to the Trump administration.
The South African government was allegedly permitting violent attacks against Afrikaner farming communities, according to the Trump administration.
Additionally, it accused South Africa of backing “bad actors” around the world, such as Russia, Iran, and the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
Since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994, the distribution of land in South Africa has been a complex and emotional topic with racial overtones for more than 30 years.
It gained global limelight when Trump and Elon Musk, his South African-born advisor, accused the South African government of anti-white measures, often using false claims.
The Expropriation Act
The South African government can take land from private individuals under the new Expropriation Act, but only if it serves the public interest and meets specific requirements.
Trump referred to it last Sunday when he first announced his intention to stop funding to South Africa.
The government of South Africa, he alleged, was engaging in “terrible things” and seized land from “certain classes.”
That is untrue, as even South African groups contesting the law claim that no land has been seized. Private property rights are protected, according to the South African government, and Trump’s explanation of the law contains false information and “distortions.”
Even while the law makes no mention of race, it has caused worry in South Africa, particularly among groups that represent the white minority, who claim it would target them and their land.
The law is a part of South Africa’s decades-long attempts to find a method to make amends for historical wrongs and is linked to the legacy of colonialism and the racist apartheid system.
Black people were compelled to live in regions reserved for non-white people and had their land taken away from them during apartheid.
The government claims that inequality needs to be addressed because white people currently hold roughly 70 per cent of the privately farmed land in South Africa, although making up just seven per cent of the country’s 62 million inhabitants.
Also read: How will Trump's sanctions affect the International Criminal Court?
About Afrikaners
White South Africans who descend mainly from Dutch settlers who came about 370 years ago are known as Afrikaners.
They comprise a large portion of South Africa’s rural farming communities and speak Afrikaans, one of the country’s 11 official languages.
Despite the fact that South Africa has mostly been successful in bringing its many racial groups together and that the majority of Afrikaners see themselves as part of the new South Africa, tensions between some Afrikaner groups and Black political parties have persisted since the end of apartheid.
Some examples of Afrikaners who gained international prominence include EFC fighter Dricus du Plessis, golfers Ernie Els and Louis Oosthuizen, and actor Charlize Theron.
Trump’s executive order addresses serious human rights violations in South Africa, according to his administration, and says the South African government has allowed violent attacks on Afrikaner farmers and their families.
Trump said the US will establish a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.
Elon musk’s role in the matter
Though he was born and raised in South Africa, the Tesla entrepreneur and Trump ally left the country in the late 1980s, when apartheid was still in effect.
The current administration in his home nation has been the target of his criticism for years. He claims that they have anti-white policies and have ignored or even encouraged a “genocide” concerning the deaths of several white farmers.
The killings are at the heart of claims made by conservative pundits, who have since been emphasized by Trump and Musk, that South Africa is permitting attacks on white farms in order to expel them.
The South African government has condemned the killings and says they are part of the country’s desperately high violent crime rates across the board.
Experts say there is no evidence of genocide and the killings make up a very small percentage of homicides.
For example, a group that records farm attacks says 49 farmers or their families were killed in 2023, while there were more than 27,000 homicides in the country that year.
Musk also accused South Africa this week of having “racist ownership laws,” an apparent reference to his failure to get a license in the country for his Starlink satellite internet service because it doesn’t meet affirmative action criteria.
Trump’s order
Trump’s order stops hundreds of millions of dollars a year the US gives South Africa, most of it to help its HIV/AIDS response. The U.S. gave South Africa around $440 million last year and funds 17 per cent of South Africa’s HIV program through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Parts of that funding had already been threatened by Trump’s global aid freeze, but it will now all be stopped in a major blow to South Africa’s health sector.
South Africa has around eight million people living with HIV — with 5.5 million of them receiving antiretroviral medication — and US funding is vital in supporting the largest national HIV/AIDS program in the world.
The executive order also said South Africa had taken an anti-American stance — even “led the charge” — on many issues, accusing it of supporting Hamas, Russia and Iran, and being too close to China’s ruling Communist Party.
South Africa has long been a supporter of Palestinians and a critic of Israel and has maintained close ties to Russia because of its help in fighting apartheid. Trump’s order appears to require a significant shift in South Africa’s foreign policy to allow the aid to start again.
With inputs from The Associated Press
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