MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For more on this, we're ed now by South African journalist Redi Tlhabi. Welcome. Thank you for ing us.
REDI TLHABI: Thank you so much. It's great to be with you.
MARTIN: So what did you make of the interaction between President Ramaphosa and President Trump?
TLHABI: Well, it was certainly volatile, especially after they were talking about a nonexistent genocide. And the good thing is that South Africa came with very lowered expectations. They really thought it would get so heated after what Zelenskyy went through. There was an ambush because they were supposed to have a private meeting first to set the record straight before facing the media in that public spectacle. But at the very last minute, the Trump side just changed things. So a mixed bag in that President Ramaphosa is a cool cat. He's not a showman, but sometimes that works in his disadvantage because he doesn't get a word in. But they had lowered expectations, and certainly, they were relieved that some of the things, like the ICJ case that South Africa took - the Israel case that South Africa took to the ICJ, didn't come up.
MARTIN: The International Criminal Court case is what you're speaking of. Now, this - let's go back to this genocide claim. It's been circulating for some time. What's your understanding of the origin of the claim and why it's been picked up by President Trump?
TLHABI: The reasoning in South Africa, what they believe, is that this has everything to do with Elon Musk. There are differences between Elon Musk and South Africa about how he sets up Starlink in South Africa. There are regulatory requirements. There are ownership issues that he has to overcome. He doesn't want to go through that. He wants South Africa to make concessions for him. South Africa believes that Elon is trying to extort maximum benefit for himself without respecting the domestic laws when it comes to trade. And so he's whispering to Trump, as - you know, with the aim of tarnishing the relationship so that South Africa is under pressure and gives in to his concessions.
But the second reason for that is that South Africa has a historic inequality when it comes to land ownership. The majority of land is in the hands of white people. And the reason for that was because of apartheid, the dispossession of Black people that were forced out of their lands many, many years ago, and South Africa has been stalling. It is the fault of the South African government that they've been lethargic, stalling, and not doing enough to get what they call land restitution and land compensation. And so they introduced this piece of legislation to achieve that, and it is causing such domestic disharmony. So the white landowners are coming to the United States, mobilizing the Trump istration to stop the South African government from doing this.
MARTIN: But can you just clarify, are these white landowners - have they been subjected to violence, and are they, in fact, the majority of the victims of violence? We do understand that there is a problem with violence in South Africa, so have these landowners been subjected to violence, and are they the majority of the victims? I mean, the president's calling this a genocide.
TLHABI: They are victims of crime, just like every Black person in South Africa. There is no unique crime directed at white people that has a race lens. South Africa has an unacceptably high crime rate. The majority of victims of murder in South Africa are Black men. The majority of victims of rape are Black women. And of course, farmers are vulnerable because they're often living in the outskirts, where it's much harder to call for help. Some of the victims of farm murders are farm laborers themselves. Sometimes, the crime on the farm is a domestic dispute between the landowner and the workers. And so the crime problem in South Africa is affecting everybody and not just white farmers. So the claim of white genocide is absolutely untrue.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, as you mentioned, the International Court of Justice case against Netanyahu has been a huge sort of international issue. The South Africa delegation, as you said, expected to hear about that. Trump seemed not to care about this at all. Was this a surprise?
TLHABI: A huge, huge surprise. I can tell you right now that the South African side overprepared when it comes to the Israel matter. They're still talking about it, and I've phoned some of the people who were there. They thought that it was a big surprise that Trump just didn't mention it, given the level of energy that Trump has thrown into or that the U.S. has thrown into ing Israel.
MARTIN: That's South African journalist Redi Tlhabi. Redi Tlhabi, thank you so much for ing us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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