AfriForum promises to 'fight unashamedly for the interests of Afrikaner' in response to the criticism of their White House visit AfriForum and Solidarity delegation have met with US President Donald Trump’s administration at the White House in Washington DC on Tuesday.
Image: x/afriforum
UNDETTERED by the widespread roasting they received for their mission to the White House to cry on the shoulders of the US government officials about their plight, lobby group AfriForum maintained they would continue to "fight unashamedly for the rights of Afrikaners".
Various media platforms were awash this week with commentary about AfrForum and Solidarity's US expedition.
President Cyril Ramaphosa also made his feelings know about the supposed consequences of both organisations' actions.
It emerged this week that Ramaphosa was also still mulling over who would be included in the delegation to be sent to the US, in light President Donald Trump issuing executive orders in February to cut the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) funding to South Africa.
Trump also afforded white Afrikaners priority status to seek refuge in the US as some were opposed to South Africa’s land expropriation policy.
On Thursday, it was announced that the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) to South Africa and many other countries was stopped.
The Pepfar programme, which began in 2003, is know to have made massive contributions to South Africa's treatment and HIV counselling, over the years..
"What they are doing has spawned divisions in our nation. This is not a nation-building process of running around the world to have your problems solved, that's sowing division," was Ramaphosa reaction to the two groups' US trip.
Responding to Ramaphosa's remarks, AfriForum's CEO, Kallie Kriel, said their White House visit stemmed from frustrations with the South African government's refusal to address their concerns.
He blamed Ramaphosa and African National Congress (ANC) leaders for causing division through the implementation of the Bela Act and Land expropriation without compensation.
“It is Ramaphosa who signed the anti-Afrikaans Bela Act – an act that threatens the cultural existence of Afrikaans-speaking cultural communities. It is also Ramaphosa who signed the Expropriation Act. It is he who refuses to condemn slogans such as ‘Kill the Boer’ and it is the same president who denies the existence of farm murders.”
Kriel said that the lobby groups (Solidarity and the Solidarity Movement) sent letters to Ramaphosa regarding the Bela Act, the Expropriation Act and the current tension with the US, but these letters were ignored.
“We will not be deterred. We will simply continue to fight for the interests of the country, and we will also fight unashamedly for the interests of Afrikaners. These statements only motivate us more to get our message out loud and clear. We are not going to be silenced by the so-called ‘cancel culture’ and we look forward to the future," he said.
DAILY NEWS