Are white South Africans confronted with a genocide as Donald Trump claims?

US President Donald Trump has given members of the Afrikaner community in South Africa, alleging that a genocide was held in the country.

Nearly 60 of them arrived in the United States after obtaining asylum.

The South African government has enabled the United States Embassy to examine its requests within the country and let the group get on an chartered flight from Johannesburg’s main international airport-not scenes normally associated with refugees fleeing persecution.

South African history online sums up their identity by stressing that “modern Afrikaner comes mainly from Western Europeans who settled on the southern tip of Africa in the middle of the 17th century”.

A mixture of Dutch (34.8%), German (33.7%) and French (13.2%) colonists, they formed a “unique cultural group” which was “entirely with African soil”, noted South African history online.

Their language, Afrikaans, is quite similar to the Dutch.

But as they hovered their roots in Africa, the Afrikaners, as well as other white communities, forced blacks to leave their land.

Afrikaners are also known as Boers, which in fact means a farmer, and the group is still closely associated with agriculture.

In 1948, the government led by Afrikaner of South Africa introduced apartheid, or apartment, bringing racial segregation to a more extreme level.

This included laws that prohibited marriages on racial lines, reserved many qualified and semi-qualified jobs for whites and forced blacks to live in what was called cantons and homeland.

They also denied a decent education, the leader of the Afrikaner Hendrik Verwoerd having noted in the 1950s that “blacks should never be the greener pastures of education. They should know that their station in life must be wood and water drawers”.

The Afrikaner domination of South Africa ended in 1994, when blacks were authorized to vote for the first time during a national election, bringing power Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC).

Afrikaners currently represent more than 2.5 million out of a population of more than 60 million inhabitants, or around 4%.

None of the political parties of South Africa – including those who represent Afrikaners and the white community in general – have said that there is a genocide in South Africa.

But such assertions have been circulating among the right -wing groups for many years and Trump also referred to a genocide during his first mandate.

The affirmations arise from attacks against white farmers or deceived information disseminated online.

In February, a South African judge rejected the idea of ​​a genocide as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, when he standard in an inheritance case involving the donation of a rich beneficent to the White Boerelegioen supremacist group.

South Africa does not publish crime figures based on breed, but the last figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024.

Among these, 12 were killed in agricultural attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were residents of the farm and four were employees, who were probably black.

Defending his decision to give refugee status by Afrikaners, Trump said that a “genocide” took place in South Africa, white farmers were “brutally killed” and that their “land is confiscated”.

Trump said he didn’t know how he could attend the G20 summit in the world leaders, which should be held in South Africa later this year, in such an environment.

“I don’t know how we can go unless this situation is taken care of,” he added.

South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa said it was “completely false” to claim that “people of a certain race or culture are intended for persecution”.

Referring to the first group that moved to the United States, he said: “They leave because they do not want to adopt the changes that take place in our country and our constitution.”

The government denies that the land is confiscated by the farmers, saying that a Ramaphosa bill was signed in January aimed at tackling the dispossession of the land with which the blacks were confronted during the rule of the white minority.

But the law was condemned by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the main coalition partner of Ramaphosa to the government. The DA says that he will dispute the law before the highest court in South Africa because it threatens property rights.

The close advisor to Trump, Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, referred to the “racist property laws” of the country, alleging that its Satellite Starlink internet service provider was “not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I am not black”.

To operate in South Africa, Starlink must obtain network and service licenses, both of which require a 30% property by historically disadvantaged groups.

This mainly refers to the majority black population of South Africa, which was excluded from the economy during the racist apartheid system.

The Independent Communications Authority for South Africa (IASA) – a regulatory organization in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors – the BBC told that Starlink had never submitted a license request.

Musk also accused Freedom Fighters (EFF), the fourth party in South Africa, of actively “promoting” a genocide through a song that she sings during her gatherings.

The brand’s song of the EFF chief, Julius Malema, is “Shot The Boer, Shoot The Farmer”, which he sings during political rallies.

Afrikaner lobbies groups tried to ban the song, saying that it was very inflammatory and equivalent to hate speeches.

However, the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa ruled that Malema had the right to sing the words – first popularized during the anti -apartheid fight – during political rallies.

The Court ruled that “reasonably informed person” would understand that when “protest songs are sung, even by politicians, words are not supposed to be understood literally, and the shooting gesture is not understood as an appeal to arms or violence”.

Instead, the song was a “provocative way” to advance the political agenda of the EFF – which was to end “land and economic injustice”.

The Afriforum lobbies group has appealed against the decision, but the highest court in South Africa refused to hear the case, saying that it was unlikely to succeed.

In 2023, the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, urged Malema to stop singing the song, saying that he was no longer politically relevant because the anti-apartheid struggle was over.

The ANC says he no longer sings it, but he cannot “prescribe other political parties what they should sing”.

Even if the white minority rule ended in 1994, its effects are always felt.

The average standard of living is much higher for the white community than blacks.

Whites occupy 62.1% of high-level management positions, despite only 7.7% of the country’s economically active population, according to a recent report by the South African Commission for Employment Equity.

The government has promulgated a number of laws to try to repair balance, such as the laws on the actions of economic empowerment and employment.

A modified version of the second act requires strict hiring objectives for non -white employees.

Although these laws have been widely received by many South Africans, there have been criticisms that they can lead to corruption, for example when contracts are given to friends and parents of civil servants.

Among the criticisms, the Democratic Alliance, which despite being part of the governing coalition, recently challenged the law modified on employment actions in court, affirming that this would make many more marginalized people in our economy than they are already “.

The Minister of Gayton Sports McKenzie, who is of the DA, was recently criticized when a job in his department has been announced as only open to colorful, Asian and white populations.

He defended this decision, saying that he applied the law on equity of work and ensured that “all the races are represented”, because most of the inhabitants of his department were black.

It doesn’t look like that.

In March, a business group said nearly 70,000 Afrikaners expressed their interest in moving to the United States after Trump’s offer – against a population estimated at 2.5 million inhabitants.

On Monday, the United States Embassy in South Africa published a declaration clarifying the resettlement criteria, claiming that it covered people of any racial minority, not just Afrikaners, Who could cite an incident of past persecution or fear of persecution in the future.

The most recent census in South Africa, made in 2022, shows that colors (a term officially used, which means people of mixed racial origin) are the largest minority, representing 8% of the population. They are followed by whites, including Afrikaners, at 7%, and Asians at 3%.

After Trump’s offer, Afrikaner Lobby Group Solidarity published an article on his website titled: “Ten historic reasons to stay in South Africa”.

In Parliament last week, the leader of the Front Freedom Front and the right party said they were engaged in South Africa.

“We are linked to Africa and we build a future for ourselves and our children here,” said Corné Mulder.

Additional additional report by cancel Ngcobo to Johannesburg