Trump ‘white farmers’ image falsely depicts Congo victims
The evidence of alleged mass extermination of white South African farmers presented by President Donald Trump in a White House meeting on May 21st showed images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, falsely claimed as displaying “burial sites” in South Africa.
President Trump stated: “These are all white farmers that are being buried”, whilst holding a printed-out article accompanied by a picture during the tense meeting at the Oval Office with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to Reuters, the picture was, in reality, a screenshot image from a video published by Reuters on February 3rd, depicting humanitarian workers moving body bags in the Congolese city of Goma after conflict involving Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
Later in the meeting, Trump played a video, made in 2020, to which he emphasised the presence of a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa. The footage was claimed by Trump to show an extensive row of graves of white farmers, marked by white crosses. Ramaphosa said he had not seen the material before and that he would like to find out the location.
The footage was, in fact, of a highway between Newcastle and Normandein in South Africa which was a memorial site, not graves as Trump falsely stated.
The man in charge of setting up the memorial, Rob Hoatson, said: “It was a memorial. It was not a permanent memorial that was erected. It was a temporary memorial”. The crosses commemorated the murder of two Afrikaner farmers in the local community.
The video further showed the South African opposition party’s leader, Julius Malema, making inflammatory speeches and sporting the red beret of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF), chanting “cut the throat of whiteness” and a radical anti-apartheid song “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer”.
The video was played in support of President Trump’s offer of “refuge” to minority South African white farmers. Trump has also halted severely needed aid to South Africa, publicly condemned the country’s genocide court case against Israel, and expelled its ambassador.
After Trump falsely claimed Malema was a government official, President Ramaphosa responded that his party was firmly against the ideology of Malema’s radical one.
Ramaphosa set out to make the meeting a diplomatic reconciliation between the two nations. The US is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner, currently facing a 30% tariff under Trump’s import tax declaration (currently halted).
However, Trump’s agenda was to reiterate his claim of a widespread genocide against white farmers, which the South African government disputes.
“People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they’re being killed,” President Trump commented. This narrative has been circulated for several years amongst far-right discourse, and it was supported in the Oval Office meeting by South African-born Trumpian wingman Elon Musk.
South Africa experienced an extensive period of apartheid and colonialism, whereby mass discrimination again Black communities was carried out, before Nelson Mandela rose to power in 1994. South Africa remains, however, a nation with one of the highest murder rates, with a significant majority of the victims being black.
According to Reuters, South African police recorded 26,232 murder across South Africa in 2024, 44 of which involved farming communities, and 8 white victims.
President Ramaphosa calmly vocalised to Trump that the majority of deaths in South Africa were Black individuals but was met with an unsatisfied response. “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here,” Ramaphosa said, referring to golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and billionaire Johann Rupert who were present at the meeting. The three gentlemen are white.
Ramaphosa denied Trump’s allegations of racial brutality against white farmers, stating outright: “There is just no genocide in South Africa”.
Reuters/The Guardian
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