Via News Com AU:
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has ordered his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study” the South African government’s land seizures from white farmers.
“I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers,” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday.
He was reacting to a segment on Fox News reporting on moves by South Africa’s government to begin the process of unilaterally seizing farms after negotiations with the owners to buy the properties stalled.
“South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers,” Mr Trump tweeted, quoting Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
n response, South Africa’s official government Twitter account said the country “totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past”.
“South Africa will speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation,” it added.
Brisbane-based mortgage broker and South African expat Arno Nel, whose parents were tortured in a farm attack five years ago, said it was “great that the world is taking note of what’s going on in South Africa”.
“We want (the US) to warn South Africa about the path they are taking and to say to them, if they go down that path that sanctions can follow,” he said. “It needs to be a stern warning with a penalty attached, that’s what we would like to see.”
Mr Nel said he feared a “civil war”. “I’m concerned that it can happen,” he said. “South Africa has a very, very violent history. It’s a violent country.”
The community activist said frustrations were “boiling over” because expectations among the poorer black community that things would change after 1994 had not eventuated. At the same time, the white minority feels under siege.
“In 1994 the whites had 90 per cent of the wealth, (today) it’s less than 50 per cent,” he said. “To say they haven’t been sacrificing (is not correct), but they are feeling there’s no future anymore, not for anybody in South Africa.
“So they are now organising themselves into groups to defend themselves, they are arming themselves. If this gets out of hand it will be worse than Zimbabwe because there are more hungry people, more farmers, and just the culture of violence that has been created over many years.”
On Sunday, local newspaper City Press reported two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo appeared to be the first targeted for unilateral seizure.
Johan Steenkamp and Arnold Cloete, co-owners of the Akkerland Boerdery hunting farm, were ordered to “handover the farm’s keys to the state” late last year after refusing an offer of one-tenth the land’s value.
“What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires,” AgriSA union spokeswoman Annelize Crosby told the paper.
Ms Crosby subsequently stressed that it was “not expropriation without compensation and there are legal remedies available to the landowner, which is apparently being exercised in this case”.
“If the minister has erred by expropriating before the validity of the claim is settled by the court, the court should assist the owners,” she said.