During a controversial oval office meeting on Wednesday, President Donald Trump faced South African President Cyril Ramavusa with photos and videos that he said that the continuous “genocide” against white farmers in the country.
But the shots that the president referred to in the low White House room – which shows a row of crosses – was not what made Trump.
“This is – these are the burial sites here,” Trump said of the footage.
“Each of those white things that you see is a cross. There are approximately one thousand of them. They are all white farmers, the family of white farmers … they were all killed,” Trump added.
President Donald Trump will meet South African President Cyril Ramavusa at the White House Oval Office in Washington, May 21, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
In fact, the video shows a protest that occurred on September 5, 2020, near Normandian, South Africa. The protest was called for the killing of two of the reported farmers in their home in the previous area, according to the declared local outlet.
According to the port, crosses were placed along a section of the protest path by volunteers.
The protest was also described in a report at the time from the South African Institute of Race Relations, which produced its video showing the protest.
“These crosses are not graves, yet they are the intersection of victims of agricultural killing,” Hermann Pretwors, the institute’s spokesman, told ABC News.
“They were temporarily offered as part of a motorcycle protest in the wake of the murders of Gilin and Veda Ravierty, who were killed on their farm in Normandian in Kawazolo Natal. The crosses were removed after that,” said Brittors.
Elon Musk attends a meeting between President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramavusa at the White House Oval Office in Washington, May 21, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Pictures of Google Street View also showed in May 2023 that, as of that time, crossbowls are no longer standing.
In another part of the video, there is a person in a red hat that wears again and again “killing the bouir, killing the farmer”, and talks about eating the ground without compensation.
The person is Julius Malema, who founded the fighters of small economic freedom but extremists after their expulsion from the African National Congress, which is Ramaphosa in 2013.
The person in the video that appears in the yellow shirt is the former head of South Africa Jacob Zuma, and he is now the leader of the opposition party, Omkhtino and Yozoy (MK).
A video clip is played while South African President Cyril Ramavusa meets with President Donald Trump at the White House Oval Office in Washington, May 21, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
After Trump played the video, Ramavusa said that the speeches that were seen in Trump’s video did not represent his government’s policies. South African opposition Minister of Agriculture said that many parties have worked to keep extremists outside the government.
During the meeting, Trump also presented a printed version of a blog post that includes a picture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Trump suggested that the photo was taken in South Africa.
Elon Musk, a citizen of South Africa and a great adviser to Trump, attended Ramavusa’s White House visiting on Wednesday. Trump’s allegations have already been expressed that white South Africa flee the country because of “violence and racist laws.”
Ramavusa, the main political concerts in South Africa and the Judge of South Africa, denied the existence of a white genocide in the country.
President Donald Trump presents new articles as he meets with South African President Cyril Ramavusa at the White House Oval Office in Washington, May 21, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In February 2025, the South African Court ruled that the white genocide allegations are unfounded, describing them “unrealistic” and “clearly imagined”.
While the court has not been allowed by the court, it is correct that there is a problem in killing some farmers in South Africa.
Some of the murders are horrific and the total murder rate in South Africa, with 45 murders per 100,000 people, according to the data collected in 2023, but there is no indication that the murders are driven by the race.
During the meeting of the Oval Office with Trump, Ramavusa said: “There is criminality in our country. The people who are unfortunately, through criminal activity, are not only eggs, but most of them are black.”
The White House issued a statement after the meeting entitled “President Trump is right in what is happening in South Africa”, which doubles the allegations of the unrealistic administration from the violence that the race is driving in the country.
The statement contains a list of press scraps that they say supports their position, referring to articles from Fox News, Breitbart and BBC. Several scraps in the release indicate individual actions or threats of violence.
In this report, I contributed to this report ABC News ‘ABC News’ CHRIS LOOFT, Kere Inal, Leena Camilletti and Gaby Vinick.
