South Africa says Trump 'twisted' facts to push 'white genocide' claims

South Africa’s top law enforcement official said on Friday that US President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that a video he showed in the Oval Office was of burial sites for more than 1,000 white farmers and he “twisted” the facts to push a false narrative about mass killings of white people in his country.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was talking about a video clip that was played during the meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday that showed an aerial view of a rural road with lines of white crosses erected on either side.

“Now this is very bad,” Trump said as he referred to the clip that was part of a longer video that was played in the meeting.

“These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers, and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning."

Temporary memorial

Mchunu said the crosses did not mark graves or burial sites, but were a temporary memorial put up in 2020 to protest the killings of all farmers across South Africa.

They were put up during a funeral procession for a white couple who were killed in a robbery on their farm, Mchunu said.

A son of the couple who were killed and a local community member who took part in the procession also said the crosses do not represent burial sites and were taken down after the protest.

Mchunu said Trump's false claims that the crosses represented more than 1,000 burial sites was part of his “genocide story” — referring to the US president’s baseless allegations in recent weeks that there is a widespread campaign in South Africa to kill white farmers and take their land that he has said amounts to a genocide.

‘False narrative’

“They are not graves. They don’t represent graves,” Mchunu said regarding the video that has become prominent on social media since it was shown in the White House. “And it was unfortunate that those facts got twisted to fit a false narrative about crime in South Africa.”

“We have respect for the president of the United States,” Mchunu added. “But we have no respect for his genocide story whatsoever.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the South African official’s remarks.

Of the more than 5,700 homicides in South Africa from January through March, six occurred on farms and, of those, one victim was white, said Mchunu.

“In principle, we do not categorize people by race, but in the context of claims of genocide of white people, we need to unpack the killings in this category,” he said.

Misinformation

Trump's falsehoods that South Africa's government is fueling the persecution and killing of its minority white farmers has been strongly denied by the country, which says the allegations are rooted in misinformation.

Ramaphosa pushed for this week's meeting with Trump in what he said was an attempt to change Trump's mind over South Africa and correct misconceptions about the country to rebuild ties.