Checking the facts confrontation of Donald Trump’s oval office with Cyril Ramafosa

Donald Trump encountered President Cyril Ramafosa during a strenuous White House exchange on Wednesday, with a series of contested allegations of the killings of white farmers in South Africa.

The meeting – initially warm and frivolous – quickly changed the tone, as Trump asked his employees to play a video showing the current opposition in South Africa, calling for violence against white farmers.

Trump also played footage showing rows of crosses, which he claims to be a place to funeral for the white farmers killed, and presented Ramafosa with copies of articles that he said, documented broadly against the white minority in South Africa.

Proponents of the Trump administration have long been intensifying allegations of violence against the White Minority, more special Elon Musk and former FOX News presenter Tucker Carlson, who manages the segments of the alleged genocide during the president’s first term. Some of these claims are demonstratively false.

The shots played by Trump in the Oval Cabinet showed rows of white crosses extending in the distance along the rural road. Trump claims: “These are funeral objects here. Funeral objects. Over a thousand white farmers.”

However, the crosses do not mark the graves. The video is a protest against the murder of the white farm couple Glenn and Vida Rafrti, who were planted and shot at their premises in 2020. The video was shared on YouTube on September 6, the day after the protests.

“This is not a place for funeral, but it was a memorial,” Rob Hotson, one of the organizers of the event, told the BBCS He said the crosses were erected as the couple’s “temporary memorial”.

Hoatson said the crosses had been removed ever since.

BBC Verify has registered the staff to an area in the Quazulu-Nalata province near the city of Newcastle. Google Street View images captured in May 2023 – almost three years after the footage first appeared online – shows that crosses are no longer standing.

At the meeting, Trump said: “Many people are very concerned about South Africa … We have many people who think they are persecuted, and they come to the US, so we take from many places if we think there is pursuit or genocide.”

Previously, he claimed a “white genocide” several times before, and it seemed that it was about it.

At a briefing in the press earlier this month, he said, “This is a genocide that takes place,” relating to the murder of white farmers in South Africa.

The country has one of the highest killings in the world. Last year, there were 26,232 murders, according to the South Africa Police Service (SAPS).

Of these, 44 were the murders of people in the agricultural community and of those, eight are from farmers.

These figures have not been destroyed by a race in every publication of public statistics we have been able to find – but they obviously do not provide evidence of the allegations of a “white genocide” made repeatedly by Trump.

In February South African Judge rejected the idea of ​​genocide as “clearly imaginary” and “not real”.

The Transvaal (TAU) Agricultural Union, which represents farmers, compiles figures that offer an idea of ​​the racial identity of the victims. TAU relies on media reports, social media publications and reports from its members.

Their figures last year show that 23 white people were killed in the attacks on farms and nine blacks. So far this year, Tau has recorded three white people and four blacks killed in South African farms.

During the tense match, Trump played footage of political rallies in which participants sang “Kill the Boer”, a controversial song by the antipartheid that critics say call for violence against white farmers.

The South African courts categorized the song as a speech of hatred, but recent judgments have ruled that it can be sung legitimically at rallies, as judges claim that it does a political point and does not call directly to violence.

Trump said that those who lead singing are “employees” and “people who are in service.”

One of the men leading the rally was Julius Malema, who previously led the youth wing of the ruling Ann. In 2012, he left the party and has never held an official government position. He is now leading a party called “Economic Fighters of Freedom” (EFF), which won 9.5% of the election last year by entering the opposition against the new multi -party coalition.

In response to Trump’s allegations, Ramafosa stressed that the EFR was a “small minority party” and said that “our government policy is completely against what it says.”

Another man in the video that can be heard singing the lyrics “Shoot the Storm” at a different rally is former President Jacob Zuma, who left the post in 2018. The video is from 2012 when he was president. Anc promised to stop singing the song shortly after.

Subsequently, Zuma left the Anc and now led the Opposition Party Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK), which won over 14% in the election last year.

During the meeting, Trump held a series of articles claiming to have shown evidence of the killings of white farmers in South Africa.

There was an image clearly visible when Trump spoke and said, “Look, here are the funeral sites everywhere. These are all the white farmers who are buried.”

But the image is not from South Africa – it is actually from a report that women are killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Initially, the French news agency (AFP) pointed to the image and the BBC checked the search and confirmed it as a clip of the Reuters Agency, filmed in the city of Goma of the C Congo in February.