By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
(CNN) – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has introduced a new policy that restricts visas for South African officials accused of “race-based discrimination” and “uncompensated land seizures.”
This move is part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to address claims that the South African government is treating White South Africans unfairly, a charge the government has refuted. At the same time, the US has focused on allowing White South Africans to enter the country as refugees.
“The United States remains gravely concerned about racially motivated crime and government-sponsored discrimination occurring against the Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa, including race-based discriminatory legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of racial violence through dehumanizing chants and slogans,” Rubio said in a statement.
In his second term’s early days, President Donald Trump declared that nearly all refugees entering the United States would be White South Africans, drastically changing a program that had mainly helped those fleeing war or persecution.
By late June this year, more than 7,700 Afrikaners had been admitted into the US while largely halting refugee admissions from elsewhere around the globe.
“The South African government has not adequately addressed the previously laid out concerns and so today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy … targeting foreign nationals who are responsible for, or complicit in, the enactment or implementation of laws or policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, and/or the incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa,” Rubio added in Tuesday’s statement.
“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked. These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy,” Rubio stated further urging the South African government to quickly address these serious issues.
The administration has claimed that White farmers face discrimination under land reform policies which officials say are needed to correct historical injustices from apartheid.
Last year during a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Oval Office, Trump played a video he said demonstrated his false claim that White South Africans were experiencing persecution and “genocide.”
CNN investigated these allegations of White “genocide” in South Africa but found no evidence supporting them.
“What you saw in the speeches that were being made – that is not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves,” Ramaphosa said after watching Trump’s video. “Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying.”
The-CNN-Wire
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