Latest / NO FILTER / Expelled ambassador reacts to Trump_s _White genocide_ claims(M4A_128K)

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Expelled ambassador reacts to Trump_s _White genocide_ claims(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

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  Speaker 1: South African President Sila Ramaposa is being praised for how
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  Speaker 1: he handled himself during President Trump's Office Oval Office meeting.
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  Speaker 1: Ramaposa and his delegation visited the White House on Wednesday,
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  Speaker 1: hoping to stick to the topic of trade agreements. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: President Trump continued his practice of using the Oval Office
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  Speaker 1: news conferences as opportunities to try to intimidate or embarrass
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  Speaker 1: rather than welcome show diplomacy. Trump brought out visual aids
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  Speaker 1: meant to back up his false claims that white South
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  Speaker 1: Africans afrikaaners the farmers there being persecuted. Ramaposa, chief negotiator
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  Speaker 1: of the end of apartheid, kept his cool. Tenches between
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  Speaker 1: the two countries were high long before Ramaposa arrived in Washington.
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  Speaker 1: In February, Trump issued an executive order freezing aid to
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  Speaker 1: South Africa over some of these same claims that he
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  Speaker 1: brought up this week, and mark Secretary of State Marco
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  Speaker 1: Rubio declared South Africa's ambassador to the US, Ibrahim Rasul,
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  Speaker 1: persona non grata and expelled him well. Ambassador Abrahim Razzouol
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  Speaker 1: joins me now from Cape Town. Mister ambassador, thank you
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  Speaker 1: for being with me. I want to talk a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about this meeting in the Oval Office and then
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  Speaker 1: look ahead at the relationship between the US and South Africa.
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  Speaker 1: First President Ramaposa said that it was not dramatic, but
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  Speaker 1: there are plenty of people who characterize it as an
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  Speaker 1: ambush of your president. What's your view of what happened
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  Speaker 1: at the Oval Office?
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  Speaker 2: No, thank you very much. I think that the idea
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  Speaker 2: of an ambush is fairly accurate in the sense that
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  Speaker 2: you don't expect a president. You don't expect diplomacy from
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  Speaker 2: a superpower to descend into such a haranguing, hictory, lusting engagement,
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  Speaker 2: and so in that regard, when you come there with
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  Speaker 2: a decent demeanor, you don't expect it. But I do
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  Speaker 2: think that I agree with those who say that the
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  Speaker 2: South African delegation led by President Dramaposa, was united, was focused,
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  Speaker 2: was diverse, of covering all opinions, that it was most
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  Speaker 2: importantly dignified, and certainly the body language spoke as to
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  Speaker 2: who was the adult in the room and who was not.
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  Speaker 1: I want to play for you a claim that the
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  Speaker 1: administration uses to defend its assertion that there is a
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  Speaker 1: genocide and there's persecution of white South Africans. Let's play
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  Speaker 1: that this is from Elon Musk and also from the
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  Speaker 1: representative of the Department of Homeland Security.
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  Speaker 2: There now one hundred and forty laws in South Africa
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  Speaker 2: that give that basically give strong preface to if you're
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  Speaker 2: black South African and not otherwise.
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  Speaker 3: There's been over one hundred and forty laws enacted about.
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  Speaker 1: Are race based and to discriminate against racial minorities. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this claim appears to originate with the South African Institute
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  Speaker 1: for Race for Lated, which has had some race related
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  Speaker 1: controversies of their own over the last couple of years.
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  Speaker 1: But how do you defend against that claim that there
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  Speaker 1: are laws one hundred and forty of them that discriminate
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  Speaker 1: against white South Africans.
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  Speaker 2: I think that if you consider the entire law book
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  Speaker 2: of Apartheit, then amending one hundred and forty of them
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  Speaker 2: is tinkering with what Apartheitate meant for black people. If
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  Speaker 2: one of the lawses give blacks more jobs, if one
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  Speaker 2: of the lawses give blacks more opportunities in the economy,
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  Speaker 2: give them more ownership, give them more land, then those
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  Speaker 2: are one hundred and forty very few laws that try
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  Speaker 2: to overturn apartheate while keeping the edifice of reconciliation going
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  Speaker 2: with our former oppressors and supremacists in the white community.
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  Speaker 2: And so what they hold up as transformation laws of
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  Speaker 2: aparthe is in fact an indictment that we may have
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  Speaker 2: moved too little, too slowly in overturning the legacy of aparty.
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  Speaker 1: And so when Elon Musk says that he cannot get
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  Speaker 1: a Starlink contract in South Africa, although since the meeting
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  Speaker 1: there have been progress to make exceptions for him to
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  Speaker 1: do that, and he says it's absurd that he, as
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  Speaker 1: a man born in South Africa cannot get that. What's
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  Speaker 1: your response to him who says that that is discriminatory?
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  Speaker 2: What is different, for example, to what mister Trump says.
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  Speaker 2: Then he says, Arabs can come into the United States
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  Speaker 2: with their investments, but they will be required to make
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  Speaker 2: a partnership with American companies so that they bold together.
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  Speaker 2: I think that what we are actually seeing is a
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  Speaker 2: very conventional approach by countries who want to be part
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  Speaker 2: of the growth of a company. And therefore, I think
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  Speaker 2: there are six hundred American companies and their experience is
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  Speaker 2: one of booming in South Africa, of thriving in South Africa,
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  Speaker 2: and of making enormous progress and profits in South Africa.
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  Speaker 2: And so I really think judge it by the six
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  Speaker 2: hundred American companies who are thriving versus one who is
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  Speaker 2: complaining simply because he's been asked to share ownership of
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  Speaker 2: his project with black South Africans, which is no different
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  Speaker 2: to what mister Trump is saying to foreign investors who
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  Speaker 2: come in and do are asked to put up joint
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  Speaker 2: plants and manufacturing plants with Americans.
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  Speaker 1: You talked about the need for South Africa to rebuild
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  Speaker 1: its relationship, repair its relationship with the United States without
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  Speaker 1: abandoning its values, and after expulsion, President Rabberposa named the
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  Speaker 1: Special Envoy to the United States to quote rebuild that relationship.
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  Speaker 1: His name is BC Jonas. I want to play for everyone,
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  Speaker 1: something that mister Jonas said. This was during a lecture
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  Speaker 1: November of twenty twenty. This is the man the President
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  Speaker 1: Ramaposa has highlighted to rebuild the relationship with the United States.
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  Speaker 3: Right now, the US is undergoing a watershed moment with Biden,
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  Speaker 3: the second winner in the presidential race against the racist
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  Speaker 3: Homo homophobe Donald Trump. How he got to a situation
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  Speaker 3: where a narcissistic right winger took charge of the world's
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  Speaker 3: great test economic and military powerhouse is something that we
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  Speaker 3: need to pull that over.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, if you consider why you were expelled from
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  Speaker 1: the US, and this is the man who's supposed to
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  Speaker 1: repair the relationship, racist, homophobe, narcissistic right winger, how is
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  Speaker 1: he the right person to rebuild?
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  Speaker 2: You are not going to get a black South African
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  Speaker 2: who suffered under apartheid when to prison, like the two
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  Speaker 2: of us, was persecuted and hounded into the underground, denying
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  Speaker 2: the evidence of their eyes. When we look at the
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  Speaker 2: United States today, and I called it supremacism, he called
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  Speaker 2: it all those kinds of names. But the fact is
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  Speaker 2: that when a piece of hood has a hinge, it
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  Speaker 2: begins to look like a door. When it has a handle,
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  Speaker 2: it begins to smell like a door. And when it
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  Speaker 2: opens and closes, it is a door. And so I
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  Speaker 2: think it is a moment in which the latest victims
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  Speaker 2: globally of white supremacism and apartheid, when we recognize those
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  Speaker 2: kind of signs, we respond with the DNA of having
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  Speaker 2: been the last victims of supremacism in South Africa, and
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  Speaker 2: so I think we've got to get past that. We've
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  Speaker 2: got to be able to say that he has a
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  Speaker 2: business brain extraordinary. He is able to keep his eye
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  Speaker 2: on the trade relations. He's been a successful person in
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  Speaker 2: those finances, and I think that that is what is
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  Speaker 2: going to be required. And I'm hoping that with mister
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  Speaker 2: Trump having had my blood, that they will be able
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  Speaker 2: now to get on as I think they did in
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  Speaker 2: the Wednesday meeting despite the bluster and the theater of
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  Speaker 2: the Oval Office. I think good talks we had on
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  Speaker 2: the basis of trade, even on starlink, and I think
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  Speaker 2: that that's the foundation from which to repair the relationship.
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  Speaker 1: Former South African Ambassadors in the United States, Ibrahim Rasul,
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  Speaker 1: thank you