THE GHOSTS OF OUR PAST ARE BACK TO HAUNT US: Former President, and the last Apartheid ruler, FW de Klerk, not only freed Nelson Mandela in 1990, but also unbanned the ANC, paving the way for a peaceful transition of power from white minority rule, to black majority rule. The 1992 Referendum overwhelmingly supported peace, with almost 70% of white South Africans voting in favour of negotiations. FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela shared the Noble Peace Prize in 1993, and South Africa held its first free elections in 1994.
It was an act of tremendous bravery for FW de Klerk to stand up to his own peers and say enough is enough. He is not faultless by any means, but without his vision South Africa would be where Israel is today, war torn, divided, angry, bitter, resentful, and broken.
We have many problems, that is undeniable, but we also have something profoundly magical and unique about our country. Many South Africans actually want to make it work, they are committed to creating the type of society as envisioned in our Constitution, one of the most progressive in the entire world.
So for Elon Musk and Donald Trump to stir the pot of social cohesion at the end of our Rainbow Nation, on behalf of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, does not sit well with the majority of us, black, white, brown, and Indian.
Afrikaners like myself and the FW de Klerk Foundation are not fooled by the Pyrite King and Nazi sympathiser. We must speak out on behalf of Afrikaners and say no, as a small minority of Afrikaners don’t speak for us all.
They voted no during the Referendum of 1992, they wanted to keep fighting the British Empire after the Ango-Boer War. They wanted to fight on the side of Germany during WW1, and the Nazis during WW2. They did gain power in 1948, which lasted until 1994, but now their time is over. Sadly, as it is plain to see, White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism is on the rise across the world. The ghosts of our past are back to haunt us all.
– FW DE KLERK FOUNDATION slams Donald Trump’s offer to white farmers as based on disinformation and cheap politics.
The FW de Klerk Foundation has come out in strong opposition to US president Donald Trump’s attacks on South Africa and the offering of citizenship to white farmers who he says are being treated unfairly.
“The challenges we face in South Africa are not just limited to white people. All of us are affected by crime, unemployment and ill-conceived policies, especially economic ones,” he told the SABC.
Van der Rheede said that Trump’s rhetoric and executive orders are dangerous and based on cheap politics which will cause great harm to the South African economy and to the country’s agricultural industry.
“It is part of an ethnic nationalist revival. We have seen it happening in the US, France, Hungary and many European states and the South African right wing has seen this as an opportunity to confront the non-racial democratic dispensation that was founded in 1994,” Van der Rheede said.
He added that this is misaligned with what the country strives for. “If you read the Constitution, it says it belongs to all of the people that live in it. It talks a non-racial, non-sexist society, an accountable and responsive government and that is what we as South Africans should challenge.”
Trump said on Friday that South African farmers were welcome to relocate in the US, echoing his unfounded claim that the government was confiscating property from white people as he announced the suspension of federal financing.
“Any farmer with family from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to citizenship,” he posted on Truth Social. –
By Xolile Mtembu for IOL.CO.ZA – 10 March.
Just call it what it is, replacing immigrants of colour with white immigrants of a similar political disposition. Good luck America, more racists are on the way. Soon you’ll also have Russian oligarchs on gold cards to keep you company.
US Embassy SA
@USEmbassySA
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Update on U.S. Refugee Admissions for Afrikaners
Under E.O. 14204, the U.S. is considering refugee resettlement for disfavored ethnic minority Afrikaners facing unjust racial discrimination in South Africa.
For more information visit: https://shorturl.at/V67KY
Inquiries: PretoriaPRMInfo@state.gov
Beware of scams! The program is free—never pay fees or favors.
Official updates: U.S. Embassy South Africa
UPDATE 14/3 PERSONA NON GRATA
—
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday said that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome in our great country.”
“Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates” President Donald Trump, Rubio alleged in a post on X.
“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” Rubio wrote. Declaring someone persona non grata (PNG) is a severe diplomatic rebuke and usually forces them to leave the host country.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa called the decision “regrettable” and expressed his commitment to building a “mutually beneficial relationship.”
“The Presidency urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter,” Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Rubio’s post linked to an article from the right-wing news outlet Breitbart about Rasool’s comments to a think tank Friday about Trump’s election and presidency.
The PNG declaration against Rasool is the latest chapter in the plummeting relationship between the US and South Africa. There had been tensions between the two countries under the Biden administration. However, since Trump began his second term the US has taken a series of punitive measures against South Africa, whose government has been met with ire not only from Trump, but also his ally tech billionaire Elon Musk, who was born and raised in the country.
Both Trump and Musk have alleged that White farmers in the country are being discriminated against under land reform policies that South Africa’s government says are necessary to remedy the legacy of apartheid.
In the comments that seem to have triggered Rubio’s PNG declaration, Rasool was discussing the “continuities” from the Biden administration as well as the “discontinuities.”
“What Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency at home and … abroad as well,” said Rasool, who was on his second tour as ambassador to the US. He presented his credentials in mid-January to then President Joe Biden and previously served in Washington, DC, under the Obama administration.
He said that the Make America Great Again movement was a response “not simply to a supremacist instinct,” but to shifts in US demographics “in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white and that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon.”
“So that needs to be factored in, so that we understand some of the things that we think are instinctive, nativist, racist things, I think that there’s data that, for example, would support that, that would go to this wall being built, the deportation movement, etc. etc.,” he said as part of his nearly 20-minute-long remarks to the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA).
Rasool said “it’s no accident” that Musk has involved himself in far-right British politics and that Vice President JD Vance met with the leader of a far-right German political party before the elections there.
“That then begins to say what was the role then of Afrikaners in that whole project,” he continued. “Very clearly it’s to project white victimhood as a dog whistle.”
In January, South Africa enacted the Expropriation Act, seeking to undo the legacy of apartheid, which created huge disparities in land ownership among its majority Black and minority White population.
Under apartheid, non-White South Africans were forcibly dispossessed from their lands for the benefit of Whites. Today, some three decades after racial segregation officially ended in the country, Black South Africans, who comprise over 80% of the population of 63 million, own only around 4% of private land.
The expropriation law empowers South Africa’s government to take land and redistribute it – with no obligation to pay compensation in some instances – if the seizure is found to be “just and equitable and in the public interest.”
Ramaphosa said the legislation would “ensure public access to land in an equitable and just manner.” But the White House disagrees and Trump and Musk believe the land reform policy discriminates against White South Africans.
The policy has prompted a strong reaction from the Trump administration.
In early February, Rubio announced he would not attend the meeting of the G20 foreign ministers in Johannesburg, saying at the time that “South Africa is doing very bad things.”
“Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change,” the top US diplomat alleged. “My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”
Just days later, Trump suspended aid to South Africa, alleging discrimination against White farmers. In that same executive order, the president said the US would “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.” Earlier this month, Trump said in a post on social media that “any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship.”
CNN’s Nimi Princewill and Lucas Lilieholm contributed to this report.
UPDATE 19/3 – BBC
Close to 70,000 South Africans have expressed interest in moving to the US following Washington’s offer to resettle people from the country’s Afrikaner community, a business group has said.
The South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA (Saccusa) said its website received tens of thousands of registrations from those seeking more information.
In a February executive order, President Donald Trump said Afrikaners – descendants of mainly Dutch settlers who arrived in the 17th Century – could be admitted as refugees as they were “victims of unjust racial discrimination”.
Relations between the US and South Africa have become increasingly strained since Trump became president in January Saccusa said that in a “pivotal step”, it has handed the list of interested individuals to the US embassy in Pretoria.
An embassy official confirmed to the BBC that it had received the list.
Out of the 67,042 people who registered on Saccusa’s site, most had Afrikaner or English names, the organisation’s president, Neil Diamond, said.
Saccussa – a group representing South African businesspeople living in the US – said most of those who expressed interest in migrating were aged between 25 and 45 and had between two and three dependants.
FW DE KLERK AND NELSON MANDELA:
Mar 10, 2025 4:15:37 pm
