BY TAIWO FAROTIMI
The government of South Africa has disagreed with President Donald Trump of the United States over his concern for land reform in the African country.
Pretoria responded to a tweet by President Trump who said he had asked Mike Pompeo, the secretary of states to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.” Such being a human rights issue should ordinarily excite the people and government of South Africa that a western nation is showing concern. But aside from the effort giving the impression that the South African government was lethargic on a matter affecting the economic wellbeing of its people, the reaction from the government of Cyril Ramaphosa indicates that the statement by the United States president could even stir up crisis. It there shows that it does not intend to have a foreign help on the matter.
The African country’s government responded on its official twitter handle showing that the issue is too emotive for the line of action that President Trump appears to have chosen. So the immediate reaction was to decline the perhaps unsolicited help from Washington. Pretoria, obviously afraid that Trump’s method could spark crisis said: “South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.”
And to assure that it was not oblivious of the need to address the problem, the government said, “South Africa will speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation”. Thus it does not need Washington to solve a problem that is already receiving attention. What that means is that there was no communication between the two governments on the issue before Mr. Trump took the controversial initiative.
