JOHANNESBURG

The party of former South African President Jacob Zuma filed a criminal case Monday accusing AfriForum, a civil rights organization that promotes the interests of white Afrikaners in the country, of treason after US President Donald Trump cut funding to the country.

UMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the third largest political party in parliament, claims AfriForum had misled the US through its allies about what is actually happening in South Africa as pertains to its land expropriation act, leading Trump to issue an executive order against the country.

The party said it condemns AfriForum’s alleged treasonous actions of betrayal and economic sabotage and its direct assault on the nation’s independence.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order cutting US financial assistance to South Africa, citing concerns over the land expropriation act, its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and closer ties with Iran.

"The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests," the order said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed the expropriation bill into law. He said it aims to address past injustices of apartheid and allows for the expropriation of land without compensation in conditions where it is "just and equitable and in the public interest."

He denied that the government was confiscating land from white farmers as claimed by Trump.

South Africa says it has only received US aid for HIV/AIDS prevention in the country. But experts say continued deteriorating relations could affect trade between the two countries. The US is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner.

The two also have a longstanding strategic political, trade as well as cultural relationship.

Afrikaner refugees

Trump’s order also includes a provision for assisting Afrikaners to resettle in the US as refugees, escaping alleged government-sponsored race-based discrimination in South Africa.

In a media briefing on the weekend, Afrikaner groups rejected the offer, saying: “We don’t want to move elsewhere, and we are not going to ask our children now to move to another country. We have interests of future generations and to make sure our culture is passed down to future generations; that cannot be done abroad,” said Kallie Kriel, the CEO of AfriForum.

Afrikaner representatives at the briefing also denied calling for sanctions against South Africa.

Solidarity Movement Chairman Flip Buys said: “We have not, or will not, call for sanctions against South Africa or that funds for vulnerable people be cut off by the US government.”

Land is a sensitive issue in South Africa, where most natural resources are concentrated in the hands of a few white people. During the apartheid era, Black people and non-whites were forcefully ousted from their land by racist policies.

Even after the fall of apartheid, to this day, most commercial farms in the country that produce the bulk of food are also owned by white people, especially the Afrikaner descendants of Dutch settlers.