South African president slams Afrikaner lobby group's White House visit

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday slammed a visit by a lobby group for the country's white minority Afrikaner community to the White House this week as tensions with the Trump administration escalate.

The lobby group AfriForum and its affiliates said on Wednesday a small delegation of its leaders visited Washington this week to meet with White House officials following U.S. President Donald Trump's recent executive order stopping all aid to the country over what he called a human rights violation against the white minority group.

Trump has falsely claimed that the South African government is seizing land from white farmers through the recently signed Expropriation Act, and also criticized the country's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. He has also offered the lobby group refugee status in the U.S.

The group posted pictures of its officials at the White House wearing visitor tags on its social media platforms.

AfriForum and its affiliates claim that the Afrikaner community is under attack in South Africa, citing the deaths of Afrikaner farmers and land policies as a threat to the white minority.

Addressing the media on Thursday, Ramaphosa said South Africa was keen on engaging in making a deal with Trump to resolve the ongoing impasse with his administration.

He described the conduct and acts of Solidariteit and AfriForum leaders as contrary to the spirit of nation-building.

“That is not a nation-building process of running around the world to try and have your problems solved, you are just sowing divisions,” Ramaphosa told reporters.

“We should stop running to other countries; we should discuss our own problems here and find solutions. That in many ways confirms our sovereignty," he said.

The meetings initiated by the lobby group have occurred amid reports that South African diplomats have had difficulty securing an audience with the Trump administration.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not attend the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in South Africa, and this week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent skipped the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors.

Political formations and opposition parties in South Africa have publicly condemned the AfriForum and Solidarity, calling their behavior reckless and a source of lies that compromise the country.

Some have lambasted AfriForum for approaching the U.S. saying it was oblivious to the diplomatic storm they have created through a disinformation campaign.

AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel, who was part of the delegation, said it was ironic that Ramaphosa was now wrongly accusing AfriForum of causing division while in reality, it was ANC officials and President Ramaphosa who are causing division and threatening the cultural existence of Afrikaans speaking cultural communities.

“It’s President Ramaphosa that signed the Expropriation Act. It’s President Ramaphosa that refuses to condemn slogans such as kill the Boer. It’s President Ramaphosa that denies the existence of farmer murders. It’s also President Ramaphosa that ignores letters from AfriForum solidarity and the solidarity movement that is written to him,” Kriel said.

The group said it had expressed its concerns about the impact of the executive orders on Afrikaners and ordinary South Africans to “high-level people who work with the president every day.”

Former South African president Jacob Zuma’s party, Umkhonto Wesizwe, has also filed a treason complaint against AfriForum, accusing the group of spreading misinformation to influence Trump.