South African party accuses white group of treason over Trump attack

By Wendell Roelf

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) -The party of South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma on Monday filed a treason complaint against AfriForum, a group championing the white Afrikaner minority, after Donald Trump attacked the country's new law aimed at redistributing white-owned land.

AfriForum has lobbied against the law in U.S. media and political circles, portraying it as part of a wider onslaught against Afrikaners, and Zuma's MK party accused it in a criminal complaint of spreading misinformation to influence Trump.

The U.S. president last week signed an executive order cutting financial assistance to South Africa, citing the land expropriation act and Pretoria's genocide case against Israel, Washington's close ally, at the International Court of Justice.

The Trump administration said Afrikaners, the descendants of predominantly Dutch 17th century settlers, could come to the United States as refugees, lending credence to AfriForum's complaint that they are being persecuted, which is disputed by the South African government and most political parties.

The government has defended the land reform law as an attempt to rectify the injustices of the past and has pushed back against what it says is misinformation, pointing out that no expropriations have yet taken place under the law.

White farmers own three quarters of South Africa's privately held land, while white people make up 8% of the population.

Trump's criticism has exacerbated stark divisions on racial issues that persist in South Africa 30 years after the end of apartheid, partly because of yawning inequality between racial groups.

Underscoring those divisions, the mostly white-led Democratic Alliance (DA) - top coalition partner in President Cyril Ramaphosa's unity government - said on Monday it had filed a court challenge to the act, calling it unconstitutional.

"No government in a democratic country should be given such sweeping powers to expropriate property without compensation," senior DA politician Helen Zille said in a statement.

Zuma's MK party is a populist opposition party that strongly advocates land redistribution and rose quickly to come third in last year's general elections, taking significant support away from the ruling African National Congress, which lost its majority.

MK took its complaint against AfriForum to Cape Town's central police station, where dozens of supporters wearing the party's trademark green military camouflage outfits sang anti-apartheid freedom songs.

'PLOTTING'

"Treason has been committed, we contend, by them, because they are plotting against our government," said John Hlophe, the party's parliamentary leader, just after filing the complaint.

"Based on those lies, those fraudulent misrepresentations, Trump decided to issue an executive order against South Africa," he told reporters.

AfriForum's CEO Kallie Kriel said the accusation of treason was absurd.

"It is the duty of civil society ... to put the spotlight on legislation and actions that threaten the welfare of citizens and the country," he said in a statement.

A decision on whether to prosecute AfriForum for treason will rest with the National Prosecuting Authority, which acts based on evidence presented by the police.

The ruling ANC last week also blamed AfriForum for Trump's actions, though it has not taken legal action against the group.

The expropriation act empowers the government to seize land owned by white farmers, in rare cases without compensation, in order to redistribute it to poor Blacks.

AfriForum rejects the law as an assault on property rights and has been campaigning actively for years in the United States against South African land reform efforts.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Estelle Shirbon, Aidan Lewis and Christina Fincher)