Greene County Democrat

Tag: President Cyril Ramaphosa

  • Newswire : Experts say Trump’s South African land stance exposes a deep hypocrisy

    Elon Musk and South African President Cyril Ramaposa


    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    President Donald Trump’s latest maneuver, an executive order to cut U.S. aid to South Africa while extending refugee status to white South Africans, is yet another calculated exercise in race-baiting and historical revisionism. Trump claims that Afrikaners, the white descendants of Dutch and French settlers who own the vast majority of South Africa’s farmland, are victims of persecution under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s land reform efforts. Yet, the reality of land ownership in South Africa tells a different story, and Trump’s feigned concern for land rights is made even more absurd when compared to the systematic land dispossession endured by Black Americans in the United States.
    South Africa’s land reform efforts aim to redress the racial inequities created by apartheid, a regime that systematically transferred land from the Black majority to the white minority. Despite the official end of apartheid three decades ago, white South Africans still control between 70 to 80 percent of the country’s arable land.
    Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) government has introduced expropriation policies to correct this historic injustice, ensuring that land reform is in the public interest and within the constitutional framework. Yet, Trump has chosen to distort the issue, parroting the narrative pushed by AfriForum, an Afrikaner lobby group that claims white South Africans face racial discrimination.
    South African President Cyril Ramaposa recently asked billionaire and South African citizen, Elon Musk, to speak with President Trump on the land policy. The law allows the government to take land which is idle and unused. It does not allow the confiscation of land that is in use by white farmers.
    The hypocrisy of Trump’s sudden interest in land rights is stark when viewed against the backdrop of America’s own history of racialized land theft. While Trump amplifies the supposed plight of white South Africans, his own country has a long and well-documented history of dispossessing Black Americans of their land through legal and extralegal means. According to Inequality.org, at the beginning of the 20th century, Black Americans owned at least 15 million acres of land. By the 21st century, 90 percent of that land had been taken through fraudulent legal schemes, intimidation, and outright theft. Today, African Americans own only 1.1 million acres of farmland and part-own another 1.07 million acres, a staggering loss of generational wealth that has never been addressed.

    Land theft from Black people in the United States was carried out through methods such as heirs’ property laws, tax sales, and the Torrens Act, which allowed white developers to seize Black-owned land under the guise of legal loopholes. Heirs’ property laws divided land among multiple descendants, making it difficult for families to retain ownership. Tax sales preyed on Black families with fixed incomes, forcing them to auction off land they had no intention of selling. The Torrens Act allowed land to be sold without notifying all co-owners, stripping Black families of their property without legal recourse.
    The impact of this systematic theft is immeasurable. In Mississippi alone, between 1950 and 1964, nearly 800,000 acres of Black-owned land were stolen, amounting to a present-day valuation of up to $6.6 billion. The wealth lost through land dispossession remains one of the most enduring factors in the racial wealth gap, where the typical white family still has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family.
    Trump’s selective outrage over land redistribution in South Africa stands in direct contrast to his administration’s complete disregard for the historical theft of Black land in the U.S. His policies consistently benefited white landowners while neglecting the Black farmers and families who had been systematically robbed of their property for generations. His administration dismantled the civil rights division of the USDA, an agency long accused of discriminating against Black farmers and ignored efforts to provide restitution to those who had suffered under racist policies.
    The irony deepens when one considers Trump’s well-documented hostility toward refugees. His administration slashed refugee admissions to record lows, imposed draconian immigration bans, and separated children from their families at the border. But now, white South Africans—who remain the most economically privileged demographic in their country—are suddenly deemed worthy of asylum. Black and brown refugees fleeing war, famine, and persecution were demonized as threats under Trump’s watch, yet white Afrikaners are welcomed with open arms.
    Ziyad Motala, writing in the Middle East Monitor, noted that Trump’s claim of white South African persecution “would be an amusing episode of alternate history if it were not so transparently false.” White South Africans continue to dominate the country’s economy, with the top earners and corporate executives overwhelmingly white. Motala further pointed out that Trump’s narrative is being bolstered by figures like Elon Musk, whose family directly benefited from apartheid’s racially engineered economic system. Musk’s political pivot toward white grievance politics aligns seamlessly with Trump’s latest efforts to manufacture a racial crisis where none exists.

    Moreover, South Africa’s judiciary, bound by constitutional supremacy, has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to legality and justice, something that Trump’s presidency consistently undermined. Unlike Trump, South Africa’s Constitutional Court has held former leaders accountable who openly flouted the rule of law and sought unchecked power. When former South African President Jacob Zuma ignored court orders, he was held in contempt and sentenced to prison. By contrast, Trump’s abuse of presidential pardons saw convicted war criminals and insurrectionists absolved simply for their loyalty.
    Trump’s real motivation in targeting South Africa likely has little to do with land reform and everything to do with South Africa’s stance on international justice. The country’s decision to bring Israel before the International Court of Justice over its actions in Gaza has drawn Washington’s ire, and Trump, ever eager to shield Israel from scrutiny, has now concocted yet another race-based distraction.
    The hypocrisy is glaring. Trump, who has spent his political career demonizing Black and brown asylum seekers, now fashions himself a humanitarian for white South Africans. The same man who dismissed systemic racism in America and worked to dismantle civil rights protections now suddenly professes concern for racial discrimination—so long as the supposed victims are white.
    “For all the talk of ‘America First,’ Trump’s policies have never been about national interest but rather about the consolidation of power through fearmongering and race-baiting,” Motala observed. “South Africa, in its commitment to legal accountability, human rights, and constitutional integrity, exposes precisely what Trump and his enablers despise: a legal order where power is constrained, the rule of law prevails, and privilege is not an eternal birthright.”

  • Newswire : The African National Congress will be forced to form a coalition government in South Africa

    Paul Botes/AFP/Getty Imagesters queue outside a polling station in Juju Valley, Polokwane, on May 29, 2024, during South Africa’s general election. 


    Voters queue outside a polling station in Juju Valley, Polokwane, on May 29, 2024, during South Africa’s general election. 

    The African National Congress, which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, making Nelson Mandela its first president and post-apartheid leader, must now form a coalition with another party or parties to govern the country.

    “We can talk to everybody and anybody,” Gwede Mantashe, the ANC chair and current mines and energy minister, told reporters in comments carried by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), dodging a question about who the party was discussing a possible coalition deal with.

    Despite the ANC’s result, President Cyril Ramaphosa could still keep his job, as the former liberation movement was on course to get about twice as many votes as the next party. 

    Vote tallying from Wednesday’s election was entering its final stages on Saturday, with results from 99.53% of polling stations giving the ANC 40.21%. This is a dramatic drop from the 57.5% the ANC received in the last election on May 7, 2014, which was the fifth election under universal suffrage since the end of apartheid.

    The official opposition party, the centrist Democratic Alliance (DA), had about 22% of the vote.

    Behind them were two ANC splinter parties: the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK), led by Jacob Zuma, who served as South Africa’s president from 2009 to 2018, captured nearly 15% of the vote, and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) had nearly 10%, data from the country’s electoral commission showed.


    South Africans angry at joblessness, inequality, power shortages, and the lack of clean drinking water have slashed their support for the ANC.

  • Newswire : African nations ‘deeply divided’ over Israel-Hamas war

    Pro-Palestinian rally in South Africa


    Oct. 23, 2023 (GIN) – Back in 1963, the founders of the Organization of African Unity pledged to work and speak as one, forge an international consensus in support of the liberation struggle and fight against apartheid.
     
    Their aims were high. The achievements less so.  Last week, a one-day Cairo Summit for Peace, attended  by leaders and top officials from more than a dozen countries, closed without agreement on a joint statement two weeks into a conflict that has killed thousands and visited a humanitarian catastrophe on the blockaded Gaza enclave of 2.3 million people. 
     
    Only one Africa leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, was in attendance.
     
    The speeches reflected growing anger in the region, even among those with close ties to Israel as the war sparked by a massive Hamas attack enters a third week with casualties mounting and no end in sight. 
     
    The current Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza strip has left the African continent deeply divided, with some countries choosing to remain silent while others openly showing solidarity with either Israel or Palestine.
     
    Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo all expressed some form of support for Israel since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
     
    “Kenya joins the rest of the world in solidarity with the State of Israel and unequivocally condemns terrorism and attacks on innocent civilians,” said President William Ruto, writing on Twitter, now known as X.
     
    Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs proclaimed Israel’s right to exist and defend itself while cautioning that country to exercise restraint and seek negotiation talks for both parties.
     
    Rwanda called the Hamas attack an ‘act of terror’ while the Democratic Republic of the Congo expressed support for Israel from the presidency’s Twitter account.
     
    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in contrast, expressed solidarity with the people of Palestine.
     
    “All of us standing here pledge our solidarity for the people of Palestine,” he said at a recent meeting of the African National Congress in Johannesburg. “We stand here because we are deeply concerned about the atrocities that are unfolding in the Middle East.” 
     
    One of Palestine’s strongest African supporters is Algeria which condemned ‘brutal air strikes by the Zionist (Israel) occupation forces in the Gaza Strip’. They stated they were in ‘full solidarity with the Palestinian people’ while calling on the international community to act against ‘repeated criminal attacks.’
     
    Tunisia, a member of the Arab League like Algeria, expressed ‘complete and unconditional support for the Palestinian people “who have been ‘under Zionist occupation for decades.” They called on the world ‘to stand by the Palestinians and remember the massacres carried out by the Zionist enemy.”
     
    Countries that are more neutral include Nigeria which, on the day of the attack, condemned the “cycle of violence and retaliation that the current escalation has assumed.”
     
    While Uganda has not taken an official side, President Yoweri Museveni urged Israel and Palestine to strive for peace and a ‘two-state solution’.
     
    “African countries take different positions based on their political and geopolitical interests,” said Louis Gitinywa, a Rwanda-based political analyst and constitutional lawyer. “This is nothing new. States have interests, they don’t have friends.”
     
    The only African country with a strong historical attachment to Israel is Ethiopia, but it is yet to make clear its stance on the current situation.
     
    Buchanan Ismael, a political scientist at the University of Rwanda, pointed out that some African countries depend on Israel for military technology and weapons.
     
    “I don’t think African states have very strong diplomatic relations with Israel,” he said. “Their ties are based on an “opportunistic way of cooperation and assistance.” 
     

  • Newswire : Drug Companies consider move to Africa for locally manufactured vaccines

    Giving a vaccine
    May 1, 2023 (GIN) – African leaders have begun exploring the possibility of building manufacturing facilities for critical vaccines in their countries and ending their reliance on foreign countries for high-priced drugs.
    Moderna Inc said this week it would set up a facility in Kenya – its first in Africa – to produce messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, including COVID-19 shots.
    Moderna expects to invest about $500 million in the Kenyan facility and supply as many as 500 million doses of mRNA vaccines to the continent each year. 
    It took a pandemic to expose the fact that African countries import 99% of their vaccines. Africa has around ten vaccine manufacturers, but most do not make a vaccine’s active ingredients, and instead ‘fill and finish’ imported products.
    Late last year, a South African drugmaker announced a deal to make the first Covid-19 vaccine in Africa for Africa.
    The company, Aspen Pharmacare, agreed to produce its version of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 shot. At the time, the continent’s immunization rate lagged well behind Western countries almost a year after their vaccines were first rolled out.
    African leaders, including President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, who had grown tired of being at the mercy of other governments for shots during the pandemic, hailed the agreement as a milestone in the continent’s effort to set up its own vaccine-production facilities.
    A lack of manufacturing is one reason that only 11% of the continent’s people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. African leaders, meeting for their annual summit in Addis Ababa last week, reiterated a target of vaccinating 70% of their populations this year.
    So far, only Mauritius and Seychelles have met the 70% target, and COVAX, an initiative to provide vaccines for low- and middle-income countries, is running out of money.
    Currently less than 1% of vaccines administered on the continent are manufactured locally, leaving countries unable to quickly respond to pandemics and other crises. Vaccines currently needed in Africa include those for chickenpox, diphtheria – tetanus, flue, measles, mumps, polio and shingles.
    Strive Masiyiwa, African Union special envoy on COVID-19 and head of the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust, commented on the new developments. 
    “It gets us one step closer to securing Africa’s future vaccine production,” he said, “and ensures that the gross vaccine inequality we witnessed in the early part of the pandemic is not repeated.”
     

  • Newswire: Black voters stray from African National Congress in South Africa in recent elections, due to jobs, water and corruption


    Political campaigning in South Africa


    Nov. 8, 2021 (GIN) – The party that governed South Africa since the end of apartheid appears to have lost its grip on Black voters who turned away from the party of Nelson Mandela this month in large numbers.
     
    For the first time in the country’s post-apartheid democracy, the African National Congress received only 46% of votes – less than half of the national vote and an 11% drop from the last election – in polls for mayors and councilors.
     
    Although the turnout ended up being slightly better than initially feared, at 12.3 million voters, it amounts to fewer than half of those registered.

    News media around the world pounced on the famed party most recently headed by President Cyril Ramaphosa with such headlines as: “ANC suffers worst electoral performance”, and ANC Suffers Worst Election Setback Since End of Apartheid.”
     
    The disappointing turnout was blamed in economic stagnation, record unemployment and the aftermath of civil unrest. But contributing factors included rampant corruption and a rot in state institutions.
     
    “The grassroots collapse of services such as water and power in ANC-run municipalities lies behind voter frustration with Ramaphosa,” wrote Johannesburg reporter Joseph Cotterill. The popular leader struggled to overcome infighting in the party which exploded into the country’s worst post-apartheid unrest in July after former president Jacob Zuma was jailed for defying a court order to attend a judicial inquiry.
     
    The party lost outright control of Johannesburg and will maintain control of only two of the country eight big cities.
     
    “We’re not a loser here,” insisted Jessie Duarte, the party’s deputy secretary general, at a news briefing on the floor of the results center in Pretoria. “As far as we’re concerned, we are the winning party on that board.”
     
    But Ms. Duarte acknowledged that voters had sent a message. “The electorate has spoken,” she said. “The low voter turnout, especially in traditional ANC strongholds, communicates a clear message – the people are disappointed in the ANC with the slow progress in fixing local government, in ensuring quality and consistent basic services and tackling corruption and greed.”
     
    Power will now devolve among newly energized parties, such as the Inkatha Freedom Party which used its history of Zulu nationalism to win nearly a quarter of the vote in the largely rural province.
     
    The Freedom Front Plus, a historically Afrikaner nationalist party that repositioned itself as a bulwark for all minorities against the A.N.C., increased its support across the country,
     
    The Economic Freedom Fighters of Julius Malema, which presents itself as the “government-in-waiting”, ended up with about 10.42%, a small but respectable development from 2016’s 8.19%.
     
    Other parties picking up seats include the Patriotic Alliance, One South Africa, and ActionSA.

     

  • Newswire: Jacob Zuma, former South African Presidentloses bid to stay out of jail

    Jacob Zuma

     

    Sep. 20, 2021 (GIN) – Former South African President Jacob Zuma has lost his latest bid to remain out of jail after refusing to respond to a corruption inquiry.
     “The application for rescission is dismissed,” Justice Sisi Khampepe said as she read the majority decision, which included an order for Zuma to pay court costs.
     It was the latest legal setback for the 79-year-old anti-apartheid veteran from the ruling African National Congress, whose presidency from 2009 to 2018 was marred by widespread allegations of graft and malfeasance.
     He denies wrongdoing.
     Back in June, Justice Khampepe sentenced the former president to 15 months imprisonment in a ruling called one of the most prolific Constitutional Court judgments in the history of South Africa. Many saw the case as a test of South Africa’s post-apartheid ability to enforce rule of law, particularly against the powerful.
     Zuma stayed out of jail until July 7, asking the court to revoke its sentence for contempt, arguing it was excessive and would endanger his health and life. His appeal was denied and he finally turned himself over to police. Zuma’s supporters in the port city of Durban responded with fury, setting off some of the worst riots and looting in decades. More than 300 people were killed and thousands of businesses pillaged and razed. 
     President Cyril Ramaphosa called the violence a “failed insurrection”. Fueling it was frustration among the largely Black communities still living in squalid conditions long after the ANC swept to power in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.
     Zuma faces a separate corruption trial linked to his sacking as deputy president in 2005, when he was accused of taking bribes from a French arms manufacturer. 
     Mr. Zuma once said the party was more important than the nation itself, contending that it would govern South Africa until Jesus returned. And during his nearly nine-year presidency that was marred by scandal, corruption and mismanagement, ANC officials repeatedly rallied behind him as their leader.
     In the end, though, his party turned against him, asking him to step down a full year and a half before the end of his second term and the country that had inspired the world with Nelson Mandela’s idea of peaceful reconciliation, and the continent with Thabo Mbeki’s vision of an “African renaissance,” would now be known for corrupt leadership and a wide range of thorny problems. w/pix of J. Zuma
     

     

  • Newswire: ANC could have done more to stamp out corruption in South Africa says President Ramaphosa

    Cyril Ramaphosa

    May 3, 2021 (GIN) – In riveting testimony before a South African commission investigating corruption and graft, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that the ruling ANC party did little to prevent corruption, including by his predecessor Jacob Zuma. “State capture and corruption have taken a great toll on our society and indeed on our economy as well,” Ramaphosa said. “They have eroded the values of our constitution and undermined the rule of law. If allowed to continue they would threaten the achievement of growth, development and transformation of our country.” “The governing party ‘could and should’ have done more to prevent corruption,” he admitted. The South Africa Commission on State Capture is probing allegations of graft during former president Jacob Zuma’s nine years in power, including claims that Zuma allowed businessmen close to him – brothers Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta – to influence policy and win lucrative government contracts. The Guptas have also been accused of influencing the hiring and firing of ministers. Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene had resisted Zuma’s plans for the government to build expensive nuclear plants and was removed in 2015. Zuma and the Guptas have repeatedly denied the allegations against them. According to the current president, it took time for the ANC to recognize high-level corruption during the period, but that he would not try to “make excuses or to defend the indefensible”. He did not mention Zuma by name. In recent months, former president Zuma defied a court order to appear before the commission, prompting its chief investigator to seek a two-year prison sentence for contempt of court. When the country’s top court heard that case last month, Mr. Zuma again refused to appear — a move that many saw as open defiance of the country’s democratic institutions. Atul, Ajay, and Rajesh Gupta arrived from India in the 1990s and set up a small computer business before taking large stakes in uranium, gold, and coal mines. They also set up a luxury game lodge, an engineering company, a newspaper, and a 24-hour TV news station. All three brothers are reported to be billionaires in the country’s rand currency. Atul Gupta was listed by the research company, Who Owns Whom, the richest person of color in South Africa in December 2016 with 10.7 billion rands. Atul arrived in South Africa in 1993, selling shoes and computers from the trunk of his car. Rajesh and Ajay followed their brother, and in 1997 the family, which already had business interests in India, set up Sahara Computers. In 2007, new laws made it essential for big companies to have Black directors — especially if they were bidding for government contracts. Zuma’s son Duduzane began working as a 22-year-old trainee at the Guptas’  Sahara Computers, and he was quickly appointed to the boards of several Gupta companies. One of Zuma’s daughters was a director at Sahara Computers, and one of his wives worked at the Guptas’ JIC Mining Services. The corruption allegations have led to the popular use of the term “state capture” to describe the Guptas’ undue influence of private business interests over government institutions.

  • Newswire : South African leader sees end to racism and bigotry

    Dec. 16, 2019 (GIN) – President Cyril Ramaphosa struck a note of optimism in his message on Dec. 16 – the Day of Reconciliation and the anniversary of two major historical events, now celebrated as a public holiday.
    Since the nation attained democracy, he said, citizens have showed the capacity to look beyond their differences ‘in the quest to achieve true nationhood’.
    “As we take stock of how far we have come in healing the divisions of the past and building a united nation, we have much to be proud of,” he said.
    He cited the Springboks World Cup victory in Japan and the Miss Universe competition early this month as evidence of things achieved.
    Diversity in the country is evident in sports, parliament, in places of higher learning and schools, and on television screens where programming reflects the diversity, he continued.
    “Racism and bigotry no longer define our nation,” he insisted. “Where they do occur, they are isolated. Where there have been manifestations of intolerance, we have been able to unite behind the values of tolerance and respect for diversity that define our Bill of Rights.”.
    December 16 became the Day of Reconciliation due to its significance to both Afrikaner and African people. In 1838, white Voortrekkers proposed a meeting with the Zulu leader Dingane kaSenzangakhona Zulu, with an eye towards settling on Zulu lands. Dingane, mistrustful, took a preemptive measure and ordered an attack. Close to 400 Voortrekkers died at the hands of the Zulus.
    Not long after, the Voortrekkers returned with superior weapons (Zulus, said to be strong fighters, were unable to resist the cannons and other firearms not yet in Zulu hands)
    Some 3,000 Zulu soldiers were killed in this final battle, which lasted less than seven hours. Not one Voortrekker is believed to have died during the fight although some were wounded.
    The bodies of fallen Zulu warriors scattered the scorched earth surrounding the Ncome river – the water itself ran red with blood.
    The Battle of Blood River became a turning point in South Africa’s history. The monstrous defeat which befell the Zulu kingdom on that day destroyed Dingane’s political power base. The Zulu kingdom became embroiled in a civil war, as rival leaders vied for control. Dingane fled Natal in 1840, after being overthrown by Prince Mpande at the Battle of Maqongqe.
    For the Voortrekkers, the Battle of Blood River entrenched their struggle for self-determination. This militaristic victory is seen as one of the most defining moments for the Afrikaner nation.
    The second historical event was the birth of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). This was the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC), launched to wage an armed struggle against the apartheid government.
    MK mostly performed acts of sabotage, but its effectiveness was hampered by organizational problems and the arrest of its leaders in 1963. Despite this, its formation has been commemorated every year since 1961.

  • Newswire: African National Congress wins South African elections by lower margin of 57.5% of vote

    EFF opposition party poster

    May 13, 2019 (GIN) – Frustrated with the failures of the ruling African National Congress, South Africans gave the ANC its lowest turnout since 2004 when it took a record 69% of the vote.

    The ANC won a sixth straight term but with the worst ever electoral showing for the iconic party.

    Voter turnout was low. Thousands of youth did not even bother to register.

    After announcing the elections to be free and fair, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the party faithful: “Our people have spoken and spoken emphatically. They have voted for a more equal society, free from poverty, hunger and want.”

    He vowed to purge his party of “bad and deviant tendencies” as he prepares to appoint a new cabinet that will not work merely to fill their own pockets.

    The party always knew this would be a tough election. Ramaphosa is leading a divided party, criticized for its slowness in delivering basic services

    Ramaphosa is also believed to be facing a revolt within the party by Zuma allies, one that could surface in the coming weeks as he decides on the makeup of his new government.

    Observers have said South Africa’s economy, the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa, would be further weakened if Ramaphosa is removed by his own party. He narrowly won the party leadership in late 2017, weeks before Zuma was pushed out.

    Ramaphosa urged ANC leaders not to hang the party’s “dirty linen in public” and said the party must be renewed “so that we cleanse it of all the bad and deviant tendencies.”

    Meanwhile, at least one political grouping was celebrating this week. South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) thanked voters for giving them more seats in the next National Assembly.

    In its second presidential and parliamentary election, the party grossed 10.7% of the vote, up from 6.3% five years ago.

    EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi offered “deep and sincere gratitude” to the party’s supporters. “In each of the 9 provinces more people believe in the EFF than they did in 2016 and 2014. It is a sign that our revolution is on course and soon it shall be realized and accomplished,” he said.

    The ruling ANC despite winning the polls, slipped to holding 230 parliament seats, while the main opposition Democratic Alliance now holds 84, the EFF’s 44 means they maintain their spot as the second main opposition party.

  • Newswire : Land fever sweeps Southern Africa, pressing governments to act

     

    Aug. 27, 2018 (GIN) – The day of reckoning is arriving in Southern Africa for the hundreds of thousands of Blacks whose lands were taken forcibly by white settlers – a crime that goes unpunished despite promises for land reform year after year. Pressure is growing on governments to take action and return ancestral lands to their original owners. But government leaders have been cautiously backing away from some of their early militant calls for justice. ‘It’s true whites stole the land, but they also have Namibian blood’, said Namibian President Hage Geingob. “Whites are also Namibian,” he said diplomatically at a Heroes Day commemoration in northern Namibia. Geingob was the country’s first prime minister and was one of the drafters of the Namibian constitution which protected property rights of people who owned land prior to independence. At the time of independence, nearly all commercial land was owned by the white minority, which constituted less than 0.5 percent of the population, while 70 percent of the population lived on what is now classified as communal land. More than 17 million hectares of land are still in the hands of whites in that country. This week, President Geingob admitted that national efforts to restore lands to black farmers over the years had flopped. In response, he is planning a “national land conference” from Oct 1 to 5 to discuss ways to speed up “peaceful and sustainable solutions to the challenges of inequality, landlessness and the pains of genocide – whether voluntary or uncompensated.” Meanwhile, in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged to speed up land reform in order to undo “a grave historical injustice” against the black majority during colonialism and the apartheid era. It was a reference to the 1913 Natives Land Act that reserved almost 93 percent of the land for the white minority and legalized the historical dispossession of the African population. At a gathering of more than 350 farmers this week on a game farm in Bela-Bela‚ Limpopo‚ to discuss land reform, they were caught by surprise by a tweet from President Donald Trump reading: “‘South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers’,” It infuriated many of the attendees for its misinformation. “I’m worried about the politicians and the politics in our country if they don’t get (land reform) right,” said Andre Smith, 49, who grows pecans and other crops on 100 acres in the Northern Cape. “We don’t love Donald Trump and his outspokenness.”