CYRIL WARNED ABOUT 'RISKY' VISIT TO USA

Concerns are mounting regarding potential diplomatic embarrassments

- KAMOGELO MOICHELA and MASHUDU SADIKE

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa's visit to the US will be risky as he might be subjected to the same embarrassment Donald Trump unleashed against Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he visited the White House.

This is the view of at least one international relations expert as Ramaphosa prepares to meet with Trump in Washington where he is expected to attempt to persuade the US leader that there was no Afrikaner genocide or persecution in South Africa.

Ramaphosa’s visit comes in the wake of a group of people thought to be Afrikaners flying to the US on Sunday in response to an executive order Trump signed in February, giving his administration the go ahead to admit Afrikaners from South Africa who applied to be resettled in the US because of this purported violence. The group, who have been granted refugee status by the US government, has falsely claimed that they have been subjected to a barrage of violence in South Africa because of the colour of their skin, fueling already existing tensions between the two countries.

Dr Rich Mashimbye, a post doctoral research fellow at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg, said Trump was fully aware there was no genocide or violence in the country.