Trump speaks of a genocide of white South Africans. Is that correct?

What makes a bad host?

If he asks the visit to the front door to take off his shoes? If he fails to offer refreshments after the long journey? Or if he accuses his guest that he would ignore a generation at home?

The reception of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House on Wednesday took an absurd after an initially pleasantly irrelevant small talk. The host was a mood killer himself – again. US President Donald Trump surprised the top politicians, diplomats and journalists present when he suddenly let the light dim and played video recordings to his guests who were supposed to show a genocide of white farmers in South Africa. He then held several newspaper articles in the camera, which should also demonstrate the murder of European -born Africans. People were “executed” in their homeland, Trump claimed, demanding an explanation from his guest.

It didn’t have Ramaphosa – how? After all, nothing is about the claims. Really?

No. Lawyers have been arguing about what exactly is to be understood by a genocide. According to the United Nations definition, it is a crime “committed to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part”. There can definitely be no question of this in South Africa.

The conspiracy theory, which Trump, on Wednesday, has not been spreading to the repertoire of white nationalists for the first time, but (like his closer consultant Elon Musk, born in South Africa). However, it does not matter even in the charged South African politics. Also and contradicted the accusation that the claim “clearly invented” in February.

It is true that South Africa has a massive crime problem. It is also true that violence, even murders of isolated farmers, always occurs here. But on the one hand, these crimes only make up a fraction of the number of victims. Between April and December 2024 there were around 19,700 murders in South Africa – 36 of them on farms, seven of them to farmers themselves. 32 murders last year – the lowest number in more than three decades.

On the other hand, there is no verifiable connection between the skin color of the victims and the deeds, like even the white billionaire Johann Rupert, who traveled to Washington, clarified in the Oval Office: “We have too many dead – but in the entire population.” The majority of the murder victims across the country are poor, underembly or unemployed young black men, Gareth Newham from the Institute for Security Studies told the “Politifact” research portal. A local journalist of the platform also explains that the murders of white farmers would only be reported much more often.

Trump had accused Ramaphosa that his expropriation policy was responsible for violence on white farmers and therefore frozen aid payments to South Africa in February. Just last week, Trump had taken around 60 white South Africans as “refugees” in the United States.

Ramaphosa, the party chairwoman of the powerful African National Congress (ANC) re -elected last year, had previously signed a controversial law that allows the government in Pretoria to confiscate land – but only after payment of a “just and appropriate” compensation, which can only be taken into absolute exceptions. However, these exceptions do not refer to the ethnicity of the owners, but above all to public interest. This predominates, for example, if the landowner does not use the country for agriculture, but only keeps it to increase value. So far, however, the law has not been used once. A fact that Trump left out and instead claimed: “They allow them to take land. And when they have taken the country, they kill the white farmers.”

During the racist apartheid regime between 1948 and 1994, White South Africans divided a large part of the country among themselves. Little has changed since then. The seven percent Afrikaander, as the descendants of white colonialists are called primarily from the Netherlands and Germany, have around 70 percent of the private country. To date, the living standard of Afrikaander is much higher than that of blacks. Despite their small number, they hold almost two thirds of the management positions. The government also wants to get this inequality with quota -like regulations.

The film recordings are assembly of several scenes.

As evidence of the supposedly aggressive, racist expropriation policy of the South African government, it is primarily to be seen in excerpts of disturbing speeches and interviews with Julius Malema. The man with a preference for red baretts is the head of the left -wing radical party “Economic Freedom Fighters” (Eff). He is massive in criticism because of racist and violent calls – also in South Africa – and sang an old one in appearances, while apartheid popular song, in which there is talk of shooting the Boers (old name for white South Africans). The Supreme Court of Appeals allowed Malema to use the song. A “adequately informed person” did not know the text literally.

The Eff became the absolute majority in the 2024 elections in 2024, in which the decades of tone lost the first time, although the fourth strongest force, but played no role in coalition formation because of its partly extreme program. In contrast to the traditionally white -shaped democratic alliance.

In addition, according to Trump, aerial photographs of a street lined with white crosses on both sides should show graves of more than 1000 murdered white farmers. According to the “New York Times” research, these are not graves, but memorials.

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