Trump Envoy Blasts South Africa’s ‘Kill’ Chant, U.S. Foe Drift

U.S. Ambassador to South Africa L. Brent Bozell III has sharply criticized President Cyril Ramaphosa, telling News Media that South Africa’s leader “refuses to condemn an incitement to kill.”

Bozell made the remarks in an exclusive interview with News Media after being summoned to South Africa’s foreign ministry last week and accused of engaging in “undiplomatic conduct.”

The meeting marked the third diplomatic rebuke, known as a démarche, that Bozell has received from Pretoria during his nine months in the country. South Africa has objected to his public statements relaying President Donald Trump’s criticism of its policies and official positions. Bozell, a former Fox News contributor, founded the Media Research Center, the largest conservative media watchdog.

Bozell has repeatedly pressed South Africa to address concerns raised by Trump during a tense Oval Office meeting with Ramaphosa 16 months ago. Those concerns include alleged race-based discrimination, claims involving the murder and torture of farmers, proposals for uncompensated land seizures and calls for violence against minority communities.

According to Bozell, South Africa has disregarded three of the five specific demands outlined by the Trump administration.

Among the administration’s central demands is that Ramaphosa prevent people in South Africa from chanting, “Kill the Boer! Kill the farmer!” Merriam-Webster defines a Boer as a White South African of Dutch or Huguenot descent. Ramaphosa has said he cannot prohibit the slogan because South Africa’s supreme court has ruled that it is permitted.

“You’ve got a president of South Africa who refuses to condemn an incitement to kill,” Bozell told News Media.

He also accused the South African government of abandoning the Afrikaner rural community and requiring mining operations to participate in race-based programs. “We’re not going to allow your investments to go the way everyone else has been allowed to go,” he said, summarizing the government’s position.

“Those were three strikes and you’re out as far as we were concerned,” Bozell said.

“Ask 100% of the world if ‘kill the farmer, kill the Boer’ isn’t hate speech,” he continued. “If that isn’t hate speech, I don’t know what hate speech is: inciting people to commit murder.” Bozell rejected South Africa’s argument that the chant cannot be stopped because the court approved it, saying that in the United States, presidents routinely disagree with court decisions within the democratic system.

“To say, well, you can’t do it because the court said it’s not, you know, that’s poppycock,” Bozell said. “If President Ramaphosa wants to, he can do it. It’s just as simple as that.”

He emphasized the scale and nature of the demonstrations, asking, “How hard is it to say this chant, where some, where people do it, 50,000 people in the stadium jump up and down, pantomiming guns, shooting people, how hard is it to say, stop it?” Bozell called the alleged incitement to violence “awful.”

Analysts say South Africa is moving increasingly closer to Iran, Russia, China and Cuba. The African National Congress, or ANC, which leads the country’s so-called “government of national unity,” has also hosted the terrorist organization Hamas.

The shift has drawn close attention from the Trump administration. Trump recently met with Bozell again in Washington, and the ambassador said the president is “perhaps most of all” concerned that South Africa has been steadily abandoning its non-aligned position and moving closer to U.S. adversaries.

Speaking about South Africa, Bozell asked why some officials remain tied to the legacy of the Soviet Union and communism. “Why are they still working with Cuba?” he said.

Digging deeper, Bozell asked, “Why are they working with Iran and Hamas terror organizations? What’s Russia doing for them? What’s China doing for them? This is bad news when they’re going in that direction. What we’re saying is simply do what you’ve always done. Have a non-aligned with both sides. We’ll live with that.”

The ambassador stressed that the U.S. wants to make dynamic business with South Africa on mining, particularly on critical or rare earth minerals. He stated, “We’re not going to do what the Chinese do. They come in, they take the ore, they take it to China, they benefit [from] it and they make a pile of money. We’re saying to South Africa, we’ll come in, we’ll do the mining, we’ll do it right there in South Africa.”

He continued, “South Africa gets the money, not the Chinese. We bring in the technology that they could never have. We’ve created hundreds of thousands of jobs. We’re saying we could create more and more and more at a time when they desperately need it, but it will be good for us as well. This is the partnership we want.”

Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite internet company are one of many U.S. companies which want to enter South Africa. But in the telecommunications and mining fields, the government insists that 30% of foreign company ownership must be given to Black local entrepreneurs.

Bozell says this is problematical for the U.S. “There are literally billions of dollars from American firms and American government investments ready to go into mining, but it’s not going to go there so long as you have these race-based avenues they must go through. In telecom, Elon Musk has said he will put Starlink in 500 schools and pay for it in perpetuity if he’s allowed to go this way. And they said, ‘No, we want 30% of your company.’ So yeah, of course it’s hurting.”

On Friday, a senior official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations – the country’s foreign ministry – confirmed to News Media that they demarched Ambassador Bozell for a third time, adding, “This is a record. He was called in to explain his undiplomatic conduct. The issues related to the bilateral relations between the two countries are a subject of ongoing discussions. There is commitment from both sides to resolve the outstanding matters. South Africa values the relationship with the USA. It is a mutually beneficial partnership.”

Also, Friday, a State Department spokesperson told News Media, “We are not interested in diplomatic maneuvering, procedural delays or dialogue for dialogue’s sake. The ball is now squarely in the Government of South Africa’s court to outline the relationship it wants with the United States and respond accordingly to President Trump’s executive order.”

Still, Bozell looks to the future of the U.S.-South Africa relationship with guarded optimism. “Look, temperatures can go up, but I want their temperature to go down too. You know, we want this partnership. We want to figure this out. It’s good for South Africa. It’s good for the United States of America. Temperatures need to go down, and we got to figure it out.”