JOHANNESBURG – South Africa summoned the new US ambassador Wednesday to explain “undiplomatic remarks” about South African racial policies and court decisions, the foreign minister said.
Brent Bozell took up his post last month with bilateral ties fractured over a range of issues, from South Africa’s genocide case against US ally Israel, to President Donald Trump’s disputed claims that white Afrikaners are being persecuted.
In his first public address on Tuesday, the new ambassador labelled a controversial apartheid-era slogan “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” as “hate speech” and criticised policies meant to empower black South Africans.
“We have called in the ambassador of the United States, Ambassador Bozell, to explain his undiplomatic remarks,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told journalists.
South African courts have ruled that the slogan does not constitute hate speech and should be considered in the context of the liberation struggle against the brutal system of white-minority rule.
“I’m sorry, I don’t care what your courts say, it’s hate speech,” Bozell said at Tuesday’s meeting of business leaders.
He appeared to backtrack on Wednesday, saying on X: “I want to clarify that while my personal view – like that of many South Africans – is that ‘Kill the Boer’ constitutes hate speech, the U.S. government respects the independence and findings of South Africa’s judiciary.”
Trump has used the slogan to back his unfounded claims of a white genocide in South Africa. At a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House in May last year, Trump showed clips of an opposition politician chanting the slogan.
Bozell also criticised South Africa’s black economic empowerment policies, saying they led to “stagnation” that harmed the economy.
In response, Lamola said: “We reiterate that broad-based black economic empowerment is not reverse racism as regrettably insinuated by the ambassador.
“It is a fundamental instrument designed to address the structural imbalances of South Africa’s unique history. It is a constitutional imperative that the South African government can and will never abandon.” – AFP
