By 
AfriForum, a white supremacist, right-wing Afrikaner group, is reportedly lobbying US power brokers to pressure the South African government through a disinformation campaign about violent land seizures. Following years of campaigning by the Afrikaner group supporting conspiracy theories about “white genocide” and lobbied on behalf of Elon Musk’s business interests, Donald Trump offered political asylum to South Africa’s white minority soon after preventing actual refugees from entering the US.
In retaliation, MK, a South African opposition party filed treason charges against AfriForum. Many South African are in support, calling for the abolishing of the party adding that its false remarks might spark a racially motivated civil war.
By Gamuchirai Mapako
Trump’s executive order issued, misrepresented the Expropriation Act in South Africa, claiming it was a racist persecution of white Afrikaners by forcefully taking their farms without compensation.
However, the law only meant to address inequalities that came about due to apartheid, resulting in the 7% white minority of South Africa’s population, still owning more than 70% of land more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system. In general, it calls for “just and equitable” compensation, but it allows expropriation in special cases, including abandoned land.
That did not stop the likes of Musk from accusing South Africa of having “openly racist ownership laws” pushing his own agenda, pressurising the government to exempt Starlink from regulations that uplift people of colour oppressed by apartheid by making it compulsory for major business deals to include Black investors. He disapproved of the requirement that foreign investors in the nation’s telecom industry give Black-owned companies 30% of the stock in the South African portion of the company.
Musk and the Afrikaner rights group have both sought to change the narrative by blaming the killing of white farmers and land redistribution laws on the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
To prove this “persecution of South Africa’s minorities”, the group capitalised on the legacy of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s early 2000s land re-distribution which ended violently. However, evidence proves that the deaths of South African white farmers are mostly due to the country’s high crime not political targeting by the government.
AfriForum is campaigning on Musk’s behalf, claiming that Starlink is being prevented from doing business in South Africa because it is “too white” and is subject to “strict race-based criteria”. AfriForum has called apartheid a “so-called” historical injustice. The group’s chief executive, Kallie Kriel, also said that apartheid was not a crime against humanity because not enough people were killed during the more than four decades of white minority rule. This comment did not only enrage South Africans but the whole of Africa.
AfriForum launched a campaign in September against South African government over Starlink, claiming Black empowerment laws hindered the satellite’s entry, leaving white farmers vulnerable to attacks.
“By prohibiting Starlink from operating in South Africa because of racist criteria, the government is depriving rural communities of a reliable alternative that may save lives,” it said.
The country’s communications minister, Solly Malatsi, has suggested an exemption for Starlink from the Black empowerment rules, but other members of the government objected.
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