Donald Trump has ambushed South Africa’s president during a White House meeting by playing videos which he claimed pertained to allegations of genocide in the African country.
The US president was hosting Cyril Ramaphosa, who sat quietly while the footage was played, and Mr Ramaphosa later said: “I’d like to know where that is because this [the videos] I’ve never seen”.
The lights were dimmed in the Oval Office as videos were shown of South African officials allegedly calling for violence against white farmers.
The videos include one of a communist politician playing a controversial anti-apartheid song that includes lyrics about killing a farmer.
Mr Trump accused South Africa of failing to address the killing of white farmers. “People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” the US president said. “Their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed.”
Alluding to people in the videos, Mr Trump said: “These are people that are officials and they’re saying… kill the white farmer and take their land.”
The US president also showed reporters a number of news articles which he said were from the last few days of “death of people, death, death, death, horrible death, death”.
Mr Trump said: “Look at this [headline] – white South African couple say that they were attacked violently.”
He added of another article: “Here’s burial sites all over the place, these are all white farmers that are being buried.”
And flicking through the articles, he said they were of people who “recently got killed, and I don’t know how it can get any worse”.
Mr Ramaphosa pushed back against Mr Trump’s accusations, by responding: “What you saw, the speeches that were being made, that is not government policy. We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves, political parties to adhere to various policies. And in many cases or in some cases, those policies do not go along with government policy.
“Our government policy is completely, completely against what he [a person in the video montage] was saying. Even in the parliament. And they are a small minority party which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution.”
Mr Ramaphosa also said of the behavior alleged by Mr Trump: “We are completely opposed to that.”
Experts in South Africa say there is no evidence of white people being targeted, although farmers of all races are victims of violent home invasions in a country that suffers from a very high crime rate.
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