Throughout a contentious Oval Workplace assembly on Wednesday, President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with photos and video clips that he stated present an ongoing “genocide” towards white farmers within the nation.
However the footage the president pointed to within the dimmed White Home room — exhibiting a row of crosses — was not what Trump made it out to be.
“These are the — these are burial websites proper right here,” Trump stated of the footage.
“Every a type of white stuff you see is a cross. And there is roughly a thousand of them. They’re all white farmers, the household of white farmers. …These individuals are all killed,” Trump added.
President Donald Trump meets with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, Could 21, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
In actuality, the video exhibits a protest that occurred on Sept. 5, 2020, close to Normandien, South Africa. The protest was known as over the reported homicide of two farmers at their residence within the space days earlier, based on the native outlet Newcastle Advertiser.
Based on the outlet, the crosses had been positioned alongside a bit of the protest route by volunteers.
The protest was additionally described in a report on the time from the South African Institute of Race Relations, which produced its personal video exhibiting the protest.
Hermann Pretorious, a spokesperson for the Institute, instructed ABC Information, “These crosses are usually not graves, but they’re crosses commemorating farm homicide victims.”
“They had been displayed briefly as a part of a processional protest following the murders of Glenn and Vida Rafferty, who had been killed on their farm in Normandien in KwaZulu-Natal. The crosses had been eliminated afterwards,” Pretorious stated.
Elon Musk attends a gathering between President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, Could 21, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Photographs from Google Road View taken in Could 2023 additionally present that, as of that point, the crosses had been not standing.
In one other a part of the video, there’s a particular person in a purple beret who repeatedly chants “Kill the boer, kill the farmer,” and speaks about taking land with out compensation.
The particular person is Julius Malema, who based the small however radical social gathering Financial Freedom Fighters after being expelled from the African Nationwide Congress, of which Ramaphosa is a member, in 2013.
The particular person within the video who seems within the yellow shirt is former South African President Jacob Zuma, who’s now the chief of the opposition uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) social gathering.
A video is performed as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with President Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, Could 21, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
After Trump performed the video, Ramaphosa stated the speeches seen in Trump’s video didn’t symbolize the insurance policies of his authorities. South Africa’s opposition agriculture minister additionally stated many events had labored to maintain extremists out of presidency.
Through the assembly, Trump additionally displayed a printout of a weblog publish that includes a picture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Trump prompt the picture had been taken in South Africa.
Elon Musk, a South African native and a high adviser to Trump, was current for Ramaphosa’s go to to the White Home on Wednesday. He has additionally beforehand voiced Trump’s allegations that white South Africans are fleeing the nation as a consequence of “violence and racist legal guidelines.”
Ramaphosa, main political events in South Africa and a South African decide, nevertheless, have denied the existence of a white genocide within the nation.
President Donald Trump exhibits new articles as he meets with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, Could 21, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs
In February 2025, a South African court docket dominated that claims of white genocide had been unfounded, calling them “not actual” and “clearly imagined.”
Whereas claims of a white genocide have been disallowed by the court docket, it’s true that there’s a drawback with some farmers being murdered in South Africa.
Among the murders are ugly, and the general homicide charge in South Africa is excessive, with 45 murders per 100,000 individuals, based on information collected in 2023, however there is no such thing as a indication that the murders are race-driven.
Through the Oval Workplace assembly with Trump, Ramaphosa stated, “There may be criminality in our nation. Individuals who do get killed, sadly, by prison exercise are usually not solely white individuals, majority of them are Black individuals.”
The White Home launched an announcement after the assembly titled “President Trump is Proper About What’s Taking place in South Africa,” doubling down on the administration’s unfounded claims of race-driven violence occurring within the nation.
The assertion has an inventory of press clippings that they are saying assist their place, pointing to articles from Fox Information, Breitbart and the BBC. Lots of the clippings within the launch discuss with particular person acts or threats of violence.
ABC Information’ Chris Looft, Kerem Inal, Lena Camilletti and Gaby Vinick contributed to this report.
