Chairperson of the Solidarity Movement, Flip Buys has dismissed claims that there are large scale land grabs in South Africa. The Solidarity Movement alongside AfriForum and Solidarity briefed the media in Pretoria on Saturday.
This in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, stopping financial aid to South Africa and allowing white Afrikaners an opportunity to move to the United States.
Buys says the organization is planning a visit to meet with the Trump administration later this month to give a clearer context as to what is happening in the country.
“We are planning to go later on this month to the United States and to talk to leaders of the United States and to give them a proper perspective of the facts of what’s really happening in South Africa. Part of that is, of course, we will tell them that we don’t see large-scale land grabs and so on.”
AfriForum has echoed Solidarity’s stance that it will write to the US government to request that the punitive measures that Trump wants to introduce against South Africa be directed to senior African National Congress (ANC) leaders and not South Africans.
AfriForum CEO, Kallie Kriel says they blame President Cyril Ramaphosa and other government officials for the crisis that is currently happening in the country. He says some policies that are being passed such as the BELA Act directly attack the culture of Afrikaners.
“The fact is the Bela Act is the worst thing any government can do to a section of its population. Afrikaners don’t have traditional areas where our language and culture can thrive and exist. Afrikaans schools play a prominent role in our cultural existence, and therefore an attack on Afrikaans schools is an attack on our cultural existence. The President as well as senior ANC leaders should take full responsibility for that.”
Free State Agriculture has welcomed the support pledged to the agricultural sector by US President Donald Trump. The organization’s President Francois Wilken says they are encouraged that the US government has heeded the pleas of South African farmers and acknowledged that farmers’ safety and property rights are under threat from the ANC-led government.
Wilken says Free State Agriculture is ready to accept any assistance and support for its farmers particularly when help is offered by the United States and Trump.
“President Trump’s announcement that farmers and Afrikaners will henceforth be eligible for refugee status in the United States serves as a wake-up call for the government, agricultural organizations, and all communities in South Africa. Farm murders and rural security have been a reality for more than 30 years, yet none of our efforts to prompt action from the ANC government have yielded lasting results. We remain defenseless against criminals who have been stealing our livestock and plundering large portions of our crops for decades, while the police are unable to assist us. For 30 years, farmers have been targeted by radical left-wing politicians who have incited their supporters against farmers and the agricultural sector through hate speech.”
