A senior determine from South Africa’s ruling ANC occasion has defended his nation’s sovereignty amid rising tensions with the US over race relations and a brand new land legislation.
“We’re a free nation, we’re a sovereign nation. We’re not a province of the USA and that sovereignty shall be defended,” ANC Nationwide Chair Gwede Mantashe mentioned on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump has hit out at South Africa’s new expropriation legislation, signing an government order in February stating it was a method to which the federal government may “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property with out compensation”.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says the legislation ensures “public entry to land in an equitable and simply method”.
The expropriation legislation does permit the federal government to grab land with out compensation, however solely in sure circumstances.
Trump’s February order additionally opened the door for Afrikaners to be admitted to the US as refugees, describing them as “victims of unjust racial discrimination”.
Standing in for Ramaphosa in a speech at South Africa’s Freedom Day celebration within the japanese province of Mpumalanga, Mantashe criticised South African residents who’ve referred to as on Trump to “punish” the nation.
“Now they’re informed to go there and be refugees, they’re refusing. They have to go,” he mentioned.
Tensions have additionally performed out publicly on Elon Musk’s X web page, the place he has described his nation’s possession legal guidelines as “racist”.
Presently white South Africans, who’re a minority of the inhabitants, personal many of the nation’s non-public land and wealth, regardless of the racist system of apartheid ending many years in the past.
In an effort to quell tensions which have rumbled on for months, South Africa appointed a special envoy to Washington earlier this month.
Mcebisi Jonas shall be tasked with advancing the nation’s “diplomatic, commerce and bilateral priorities,” Ramaphosa mentioned.
The transfer comes after Washington expelled South Africa’s ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, after he accused Trump of “canine whistle” politics.
Final month, officers from the all-white separatist city of Orania, based by Afrikaners after the top of apartheid, visited the US as a part of efforts to achieve recognition as an autonomous state.
In his handle on Sunday, Mantashe instructed he would search to combine the neighborhood in Orania.
“Black individuals should go and construct there, and we combine them,” he mentioned.
He added that “hatred can by no means survive peace. It’s peace that builds a nation”.
