KHOISAN WANT MEETING WITH TRUMP

KHOISAN activists are calling out US President Donald Trump standing up for Afrikaner land rights, but not for South Africa’s indigenous people.

Last month, Trump accused the government of “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly” as he announced he was cutting off all future funding to the country pending an investigation.

He even offered Afrikaners refugee status as Afrikaner groups AfriForum and Solidarity met with US officials at the White House last week.

Now prominent activist for the recognition of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, Christian Martin has written to the Trump administration a memorandum titled: “Countering claims by Solidarity and AfriForum regarding land expropriation and requesting a meeting with President Donald Trump.”

Martin says: “If you look at President Donald Trump and his indigenous people, and his country, the research that I have done over the years shows that the indigenous people of America are actually worse off than these people from Solidarity and AfriForum.

“These two parties are coming together, on one side a cry victim Solidarity and AfriForum with what I call a schoolyard bully, who is no better in treating his indigenous people when it comes to the American Indians or the American indigenous people.

“If you do your research when it comes to the indigenous people of America, you will find out that when it comes to suicide, it is very high, obviously because of what they are going through. 

“Poverty, substance abuse is high. All these things are happening there yet these two parties are coming together." 

Martin says that If the meeting with Trump happens, they would discuss the South African context on “who is actually supposed to cry victim in this country”.

He said the Khoi and San have so far endured dispossession and marginalisation since Jan van Riebeeck landed at Table Bay in 1652.