Cape Town, South Africa (AP) – Trump administration is Bring a small number of white South Africans In the United States as a refugee next week in what he says, it is the beginning of a greater resettlement effort for a minority group which is persecuted by their government led by blacks because of their race.
South Africans applications are accelerated by the United States after President Donald Trump announced the relocation program in February.
The Trump administration has adopted an anti-migrant position, suspended Refugee programs And interrupting the arrivals of other parts of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and most countries in sub -Saharan Africa.
The refugee groups asked why some white South Africans have priority.
South Africa says that there is no persecution
The South African government has declared the American allegations according to which Afrikaners of the white minority In question are being persecution are “completely false”, the result of a disinformation and an inaccurate vision of his country. He cited the fact that Afrikaners are among the richest and most successful people in the country, and said they are among the “most economically privileged”.
The Afrikaners are the descendants of the Dutch and French colonial settlers who came for the first time to South Africa in the 17th century. There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners among the 62 million inhabitants of South Africa, which is more than 80% black. Many in South Africa are perplexed by the affirmations that Afrikaners are persecuted and meet the requirements to be refugees.
Afrikaners are part of the daily multi-racial life in South Africa: many are prosperous business leaders and some are used for government as ministers of the cabinet and assistant ministers. Their language is widely spoken – including by non -Afrikaners – and is recognized as an official language, and churches and other institutions reflecting Afrikaner culture are important in almost all cities and cities.
So what persecution claims the United States?
Agricultural attacks
Trump and his South African advisor Elon Musk accused the South African government To have racist anti-white laws and policies, but the allegations of persecution are focused on a relatively small number of violent agricultural attacks and theft against whites in rural communities.
The United States alleys that these attacks are motivated by racically and that the South African government “fuels” them by authorizing the anti-white rhetoric of certain political parties and not to government and not doing enough to protect Rural Afrikaner communities. The government firmly denies this and has condemned agricultural attacks, but says that their cause is to be deliberately wrong.
Violent attacks against agricultural owners in South Africa have been a problem for years but represent a small percentage of the extremely high violent crimes of the country, which affect all breeds. The government says there is no targeting of whites in South Africa and no persecution, and that agricultural attacks are part of its difficulties against violent crimes.
A Afrikaner group called Afriforum Records agricultural attacks and said that there were 49 agricultural homicides in South Africa in 2023. These are fixed against a total of more than 20,000 homicides in South Africa per year. Experts say that rural communities are sensitive to crime because of their removal and their police presence less, but the owners and workers of the Black Farm are also killed in violent flights.
However, many rural white communities have long expressed fear of the threat of violence and feel that the authorities are not enough to protect them. These complaints seem to be part of the requirements aimed at claiming refugee status in the United States, although no details of the request process has been announced.
Positive action and “reverse racism”
The Trump administration has also criticized South African positive action policies as a racist against whites and claimed that white South Africans claimed that the land has removed the government under a new expropriation law which promotes “the confiscation of racially discriminatory goods”. No land has been expropriated, but the Afrikaners who make up many rural communities have raised fears that their land will be targeted.
South Africa has laws designed to advance the possibilities of employment for blacks, and many white South Africans and The political parties led by whites also criticized them And called them racist and counterproductives.
Some Afrikaner groups say that employment, land and other laws are designed to limit their opportunities in South Africa.
Afrikaners were at the heart of the previous one White minority rule system And there is a feeling among some that they and their culture are targeted in a kind of racism inverted by the government led by black as punishment for this. The government denies it.
Not the only whites in South Africa
Afrikaners are only some of the 4.5 million whites in South Africa, who also include those who have a British heritage and other.
But the Trump administration's refugee program offers only resettlement to Afrikaners, which are largely considered to hold conservative and Christian values that could align themselves with the Trump administration policy.
It is not known how many Afrikaners asked or obtained refugee status, but a group of South African companies based in the United States said that it had a list of tens of thousands of people who had expressed their interest.
US officials and a document obtained by the Associated Press said that a first group of more than two dozen Afrikaners from around four families will arrive at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.
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The author of the Associated Press Michelle Gamede in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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