Australia’s leading Anglo-Celtic advocacy group has called on the government to cut off all aid to South Africa over a controversial new antiwhite land seizure law.
US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order freezing US aid and promoting the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees, a week after first taking aim at the law signed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month allowing the government to seize land without compensation.
The British Australian Community (BAC) said this week that Australia should do the same, noting that Mr Ramaphosa’s ANC party has argued that it needs to speed up the transfer of land from White to Black South Africans, and that the law may violate private property rights guaranteed under the constitution.
“The British Australian Community believes the Australian government needs to act in a similar manner and suspend all aid to South Africa pending a thorough investigation of the matter,” the BAC said in an open letter.
Mr Trump’s executive order said the South African government would no longer receive aid or assistance, and that the US would promote the resettlement of “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation”.
“In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act), to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation,” the order said.
“This Act follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fuelling disproportionate violence against racially disfavoured landowners.”
The executive order also cited South African foreign policy in regards to Israel and Iran, saying it undermined the US and its allies and African partners.
“South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements,” the order read.
The White House said it would formulate a plan to resettle affected South African farmers and their relatives, and prioritise humanitarian relief through the United States Refugee Admissions Program for Afrikaners in South Africa.
South African-born Elon Musk has also weighed in on the land seizure laws, asking on X why Mr Ramaphosa has enacted “openly racist ownership laws”.
Header image: Left, Donald Trump (Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America – Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link). Right, Cyril Ramaphosa, (Government of South African, Flickr, CC2.0).
