President playing with words regarding white farmers being murdered in South Africa

7 November 2018

President Cyril Ramaphosa played with words in an utterly unconvincing attempt to try and explain why he said that white farmers are not being murdered in South Africa in his response to a tweet by the American President, Donald Trump.

Today during question time in Parliament, Dr Pieter Groenewald, leader of the FF Plus, asked President Ramaphosa to admit that white farmers are indeed being murdered. His question was: 

"In spite of how you (President Ramaphosa) responded to the tweet by President Trump, the reality in South Africa is that white farmers are being brutally murdered. It is dishonest to say that white farmers are not being murdered.

"Is the President willing to apologise to the friends and families of the white farmers in South Africa who were murdered because he denied these murders? Will the President in so doing acknowledge their pain and suffering?

In his response to President Trump's tweet, the President himself referred to white farmers and so he made them the topic of this question.

President Ramaphosa answered by saying, among other things, that many people did not really understand what he had said.

He also added:

I reacted to his (President Trumps') tweet in which he said that white farmers and white people are being murdered. I said no ... that is not true.

White farmers are being murdered and so are black people on farms. That is the reality. The murders concern me and it should concern all of us. I will never categorise it as only white (murders).  I have to be absolutely non-racial when I respond to this.

President Ramaphosa proceeded by saying that he has phoned some of the families of the victims of farm murders, both black and white, to sympathise with them and that as president, he must act as a nation builder.

Dr Groenewald says that there is no way for the President to undo his categorical denial that white farmers are being murdered.

He denied it in front of Trump and the rest of the world. And yet he admits that it happens by saying that he has phoned the victims' families. The President's actions are disappointing and do not promote nation building at all even though he would have us think so.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 7 November 2018