South Africa summons US chargé d'affaires over Trump’s tweets
South Africa's government has summoned US Chargé d’Affaires Jessye Lapenn over US President Donald Trump's tweet on Pretoria's land policy.
On his Twitter on Wednesday, Trump said he had asked his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate South Africa’s “land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killing of farmers.”
Shortly after Trump’s comment, South Africa responded in a tweet that it “totally rejects this narrow perception, which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.”
The South African government added that the country would “speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide" the nation.
Early this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was moving ahead with plans to alter the constitution in order to allow the expropriation of land without compensation, as white South Africans still owned most of the country’s land nearly a quarter of a century after the collapse of the apartheid system in South Africa.
Ramaphosa is trying to accelerate land reform plans before the 2019 general elections in order to “undo a grave historical injustice” against the black people during colonialism and the apartheid era that ended in 1994.
White community in South Africa constitute eight percent of the population possessing 72 percent of farms, while only four percent of the lands are owned by black people making up 80 percent of the population.
According to the AgriSA, an association of agricultural groups across South Africa, 47 farmers have been killed in South Africa since 2017.
The number of attacks on farmers has undergone an increase from 478 in 2016-17 to 561 this year, but the government’s involvement in the killings remains unclear.
South Africa to file detailed dossier with top UN court on Israeli genocide
Putin: BRICS, not the West, will drive global economic prosperity
Pentagon says completed US military withdrawal from Niger
Iranian diaspora in EU, UK deplore ban on national airline
VIDEO | Press TV's News Headlines
Israel’s military struggling with shortage of troops: Report
Iran calls for more efforts to establish peace in Gaza, Lebanon
Israel targets journalists in southern Lebanon to mask atrocities
Trump vs Harris: A choice between two deranged war hawks who cheer genocide in Gaza
Over 1,800 Palestinians killed in Israel’s month-long attacks in northern Gaza
UN official urges Egypt to seize Israel-bound arms ship MV Kathrin
PressTV NEWSLETTER
now
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
