'Trump misled on white genocide'

After talking to white farmers, one of the US president's advisers, Mark Burns, said the genocide claims are false

- Nkateko Joseph Mabasa

African American televangelist Mark Burns, an ally of Donald Trump, has challenged the “white genocide” narrative about South Africa pushed by the United States president, and decried the country’s foreign policy ambivalence towards the dollar, in an interview with the Mail & Guardian.

Burns, a minister of the Harvest Worship Center in South Carolina and a Republican who ran for state governor, served as a board member of Pastors for Trump. As an early supporter of Trump in 2016, Time magazine named Burns one of the US president’s top advisers.

Burns’ visit to South Africa follows months of strained relations between South Africa and the US, which culminated in the first batch of 59 Afrikaners being granted refugee status in the US and the awkward bilateral trade reset meeting at the White House in May, where President Cyril Ramaphosa was confronted with genocide claims by Trump.

M&G: What has been your experience of South Africa thus far?

Burns: I’ve been to Africa many times, the continent, first time ever in South Africa. I feel like I’m in America. I’m going to be honest with you. There’s so many similarities. From architecture to your transportation, your roads, your highways. Literally, I’m thinking I’m back at home in South Carolina, with the exception that we drive on different sides of the roads.

In terms of religion, and also the political scene, how are you finding it?