Nominee For South Africa Ambassadorship Refuses To Refute Trump’s “White Genocide” Lie
By Semafor Africa Photos: Wikimedia Commons US President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for ambassador to South Africa offered support for disputed claims that thousands of white Afrikaner farmers are under attack in Africa’s most industrialized nation, a row that has come to dominate fraying ties between the two countries. At a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, nominee Leo Brent Bozell — a longtime conservative media critic with no diplomatic background — declined to accept Democratic senators’ framing of Trump’s false genocide claims as “legally and morally absurd.” He also refused to directly answer questions suggesting the US should not have a refugee policy based on race: “In South Africa, you have thousands of attacks that have taken place against white farmers,” he said. Washington is reportedly planning to allow 7,000 white Afrikaners into the country, out of a total of just 7,500 refugees this year. The “false narrative” of a genocide from the US has become a major sticking point in ongoing trade talks between Pretoria and Washington, South Africa’s foreign minister said this week. Bozell’s likely confirmation by a Republican-majority senate is expected to become another friction point. In March, Washington expelled Pretoria’s ambassador to the US for criticizing Trump during a webinar, and in May, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was ambushed by Trump in the Oval Office with claims of “white genocide.”
Black News 
By Semafor Africa
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
US President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for ambassador to South Africa offered support for disputed claims that thousands of white Afrikaner farmers are under attack in Africa’s most industrialized nation, a row that has come to dominate fraying ties between the two countries.
At a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, nominee Leo Brent Bozell — a longtime conservative media critic with no diplomatic background — declined to accept Democratic senators’ framing of Trump’s false genocide claims as “legally and morally absurd.” He also refused to directly answer questions suggesting the US should not have a refugee policy based on race: “In South Africa, you have thousands of attacks that have taken place against white farmers,” he said.
Washington is reportedly planning to allow 7,000 white Afrikaners into the country, out of a total of just 7,500 refugees this year.
The “false narrative” of a genocide from the US has become a major sticking point in ongoing trade talks between Pretoria and Washington, South Africa’s foreign minister said this week.
Bozell’s likely confirmation by a Republican-majority senate is expected to become another friction point.
In March, Washington expelled Pretoria’s ambassador to the US for criticizing Trump during a webinar, and in May, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was ambushed by Trump in the Oval Office with claims of “white genocide.”
