United States President Donald Trump, on Wednesday, showed a photo of dead ‘white farmers’ to the visiting South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, to back his allegations of white genocide against the African country.
However, a report by Reuters has revealed the photo was a screenshot from its video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as opposed to Trump’s representation of the picture as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans.
Tribune Online reports that the South African President, on Wednesday, visited Trump at the Oval Office to mend his country’s ties with the US following recent criticisms by Trump over land laws.
During the meeting, Trump claimed that white farmers are “fleeing South Africa” and proceeded to play a video that showed a crowd chanting “kill the Boer, kill the farmer.”
Meanwhile, no fewer than 59 white South Africans, last week, arrived in the United States after being granted refugee status by the Trump-led administration, which considered them victims of racial discrimination in South Africa, Tribune Online reports.
Earlier, following the signing of a bill by South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, early this year, that stipulates the government may, in certain circumstances, offer “nil compensation” for property it decides to expropriate in the public interest, Trump reacted by accusing the African country of targeting the white people in South Africa.
However, during the contentious Oval Office meeting with Ramaphosa, Trump held up a printout of an article, accompanied by the photo, and said, “These are all white farmers that are being buried.”
According to Reuters, the post did not caption the image but identified it as a “YouTube screen grab” with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters.
While the White House did not respond to Reuters for comment on it, the managing editor at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, Andrea Widburg, has reacted to the development, saying Trump had “misidentified the image.”
“That day, it was extremely difficult for journalists to get in … I had to negotiate directly with M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to be allowed to film,” Al Katanty said. “Only Reuters has video.”
According to her, seeing Trump holding the article with the screengrab of his video to represent the situation in South Africa came as a shock.
“In view of all the world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that in his country, white people are being killed by Black people,” Al Katanty told Reuters.
ALSO READ TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then