‘Thanks for the offer, but we owe it to our forebears’ – Afrikaners to Trump

US President Donald Trump’s executive order to prioritise the resettlement of Afrikaners through the US refugee programme has been welcomed but not accepted, as many Afrikaners say they want to stay.

AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said they appreciated that Trump pointed out the injustices against Afrikaners, but the Afrikaners’ future lies in Africa.

Trump’s executive order on Afrikaners

Kriel said that urgent solutions should therefore be found for the injustices committed by the South African government against Afrikaners and other cultural communities in the country.

“AfriForum emphasises that the executive order that Trump, issued yesterday regarding the position of Afrikaners in South Africa, is a direct result of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government’s irresponsible actions and policies,” he said.

“Emigration only offers an opportunity for Afrikaners who are willing to risk potentially sacrificing their descendants’ cultural identity as Afrikaners.

“The price for that is simply too high. We also owe it to our forefathers not to nullify their sacrifices to let Afrikaners take shape as a people by giving up our self existence as Afrikaners.”

Injustices Afrikaners were subjected to

Kriel said AfriForum, together with the Solidarity Movement, would focus on practical proposals to tackle the injustices to which Afrikaners were subjected, based on mutual recognition and respect with other communities in the country.

He added that AfriForum’s proposals included the tabling of amendment laws on the Basic Education Law Amendment (Bela) Act, South Africa’s return to a foreign policy that is neutral regarding international conflicts, the cessation of racial discrimination against Afrikaners and other minorities and the cessation of statements that are hateful to Afrikaners and other minorities such as the use of the “Kill the Boer” chant.

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Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) leader Pieter Groenewald welcomed the pressure Trump’s executive order puts on the South African government to review the Expropriation Act but added that its unintended consequences could be disastrous.

“Vulnerable South Africans will bear the brunt of Trump’s executive order to cut all financial assistance to South Africa. It is therefore crucial to reconsider irresponsible ANC policy directions,” he said.

Groenewald said the executive order was a recognition of Afrikaners’ dire circumstances and was welcomed, but the party was convinced that Afrikaners have an important role to play in South Africa and should not seek asylum in the US or anywhere else.

Misinformation

The Transvaal Agricultural Union SA (TLU SA) said Trump and his administration’s recognition of the reality Afrikaners face in South Africa was a clear message that property rights and economic freedom remained international core values and cannot be ignored.

TLU SA general manager Bennie van Zyl said this step was not merely a reaction to misinformation, as some may claim, but the direct result of decades of policies that had underminedprivate property rights and weakened the South African economy.

“The ANC’s transformation agenda, including cadre deployment and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), has led over the past 30 years to the systematic exclusion of certain groups from the workforce and economic opportunities.

READ MORE: Trump’s SA executive order: The ANC, DA and GNU’s conundrum

“This policy, coupled with BEE, has created an environment where private property rights are no longer guaranteed.

“This is not just a threat to farmers but to all South Africans who wish to secure their economic future,” he said.

Van Zyl said the argument that large-scale land grabs were not happening was an evasive excuse that ignored the real issue.

He said the core issue for TLU SA was not just the immediate impact, but the principle itself and that private property rights had been undermined.