‘These are not refugees’: Afrikaners relocating to the US can return to South Africa, but there’s a catch

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation on Monday insisted that the group of 49 Afrikaners who left South Africa, heading to the United States under President Donald Trump’s offer, are not refugees.

On Monday morning, IOL reported that a chartered plane carrying 49 South African Afrikaners departed for the United States on Sunday night under Trump’s offer for the “discriminated” South African individuals and families to relocate.

The first batch of Afrikaner refugees left OR Tambo International Airport on a flight operated by the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based charter company Omni Air International, and are expected to land in Washington on Monday evening.

Speaking to broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola said the notion being peddled, that Afrikaners are being persecuted in South Africa, is false.

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“We understand it is 49 people who have taken up the offer for refugee status in the United States. Just to be clear, the South African government unequivocally states that these are not refugees. In a country like ours, some of us went to schools where we were taught Afrikaans and by the way Afrikaans is still a medium of instruction and language in many of our schools,” said Phiri.

“We have judges, ministers, former mayors, we have streets named after Afrikaner heroes and Afrikaner nationals in the liberation context as well. To this day, you can drive on Voortrekker Street in any town in South Africa. 

“This idea that Afrikaners are being persecuted is completely false, let alone the fact that Afrikaners are not just white people. There are also Africans who are Afrikaners so this is something that we have stated quite unequivocally, that we contest the status of them being refugees. But we also said we are not going to stand in the way,” he said.

The group of 49 left the country on their South African passports and the government in Pretoria said there is no intention to deprive them of citizenship. 

Phiri however highlighted that once the individuals are accepted into the United States refugee system, they cannot be returned to South Africa by the US government - for any reason.

“Here is the difficulty, possibly for these individuals … if they accept refugee status in the United States and they are facilitated as refugees, the United States cannot return them to South Africa for whatever reason. They cannot be deported by the government of the United States,” said Phiri.

“They may self-deport themselves by coming back to South Africa but that will also mean they then renounce their refugee status in the United States. It is really a complex situation.”

On Saturday, IOL reported that South Africa's ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said the resettlement of South Africans in the United States under the guise of being “refugees” is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy.

It has been reported that officials from the Departments of State and Homeland Security in the US will be welcoming from Monday the arrival of the first group of Afrikaners in Washington DC. They have been granted refugee status.

Trump suspended the US refugee settlement programme in January, on his first day in office, leaving more than 100,000 people approved for resettlement stranded, having fled war and persecution in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.

However, in February, Trump signed an executive order directing his government to grant refugee status to Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French colonisers who he claimed were discriminated against.

jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za

IOL News