US to resettle first white South Africans ‘within days’ – media

Donald Trump

Washington – Donald Trump’s administration plans to resettle the first group of white South Africans to the United States next week, US media reported on Thursday, after the president accused Pretoria of “racial discrimination” against them.

Trump is locked in a diplomatic row with South Africa over a land expropriation act that the Republican leader says will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.

Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, has said the law signed in January would “enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.

“It allows the government, as a matter of public interest, to decide on expropriations without compensation – but only in exceptional circumstances.

The resettlement plan was first reported by US investigative outlet The Lever, which quoted an April 30 memo saying that the South Africans were scheduled to arrive “within a few days”.

Washington was preparing to resettle up to 1,000 Afrikaners this year, The Lever said, quoting a government source.

National Public Radio (NPR) and the New York Times said the group was scheduled to arrive Monday, although the Times quoted officials saying the date could change depending on logistics.

Trump said in February he would prioritise access to a refugee program “for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” despite halting refugee arrivals to the United States immediately after taking office.

He also issued an executive order to freeze US aid to South Africa over the law.

The Afrikaners are descendants of European colonists, mainly of Dutch extraction, and are mainly engaged in farming in South Africa.

English and Afrikaner colonists ruled South Africa until 1994 under a brutal system in which the black majority were deprived of political and economic rights.

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