Facts test by Donald Trump's Oval Office confrontation with Cyril Ramaphosa

Donald Trump confronted President Cyril Ramaphosa during a tense exchange in the White House on Wednesday with a number of controversial claims about the murders of white farmers in South Africa.

The meeting – initially warm and carefree – changed the tone quickly when Trump asked his employees to play a video that the opposition's South African politicians demanded with violence against white farmers.

Trump also played film material with crosses, which he claimed, a tomb for murdered white farmers, and presented Ramaphosa copies of articles, of which he said that she had documented widespread brutality against the white minority of South Africa.

Followers of the Trump administration have long strengthened violence against the white minority, in particular Elon Musk and the former moderator of Fox News, Tucker Carlson, who led segments to the supposed genocide during the first term of office. Some of these claims are proven to be wrong.

The footage played by Trump in the oval office showed how white crosses stretched along a rural road in the distance. Trump claimed: “These are graves here. Graves. Over a thousand white farmers.”

However, the crosses do not mark graves. The video comes from a protest against the murder of white agriculture, Glen and Vida Rafferty, which were attacked and shot in 2020.

Darrell Brown, who organized the march, told the local media outlet SABC News that “each of these crosses represents almost 10 commercial farmers who have been murdered over the years, which are 500 crosses”.

BBC Verify has chosen the film material in an area in the province of Kwazulu-Natal near the city of Newcastle. The Google Street View pictures – almost three years after the first online film material – shows that the crosses were no longer available in May 2023.

In the meeting, Trump said: “Many people are very concerned about South Africa. We have a lot of people who have the feeling that they are persecuted, and they get to the USA, so we will take out from many places when we feel that persecution or genocide are going on.”

He previously raised claims for “white genocide” and seemed to refer to it.

At a press conference at the beginning of this month, he said: “It is a genocide that takes place”, which relates to the killing of white farmers in South Africa.

The country has one of the highest moral rates in the world. According to the South African Police Service (SAPS), 26,232 murders were held last year.

Of these, 44 murders of people in the farmers' community and of these were eight of farmers.

These numbers are not broken down by breed in any public statistics that we could locate – but they clearly provide no evidence of the demands of the “white genocide”, which was repeated by Trump.

In February, a South African judge rejected the idea of ​​a genocide as “clearly imagined” and “not real”.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU), which represents farmers, creates figures that offer an insight into the victims' racial identity. The dew is based on media reports, social media contributions and reports of its members.

Her figures for the past year show that 23 white people were killed in agricultural attacks and nine blacks. So far, Tau has recorded three white and four blacks on South African farms this year.

During the tense meeting, Trump played film material from political rallies, in which the participants sang “Kill the Boer” -a controversial anti -Partheid song that critics say that they are demanding violence against white farmers.

Trump said that those who led the singing “civil servants” and “people who were in office”.

One of the men who led the rally was Julius Malema, who previously headed the youthful youth wing of the ruling Anc. In 2012 he left the party and never held an official government position. He now heads a party called the economic Freedom Fighter (Eff), which won 9.5% in the elections of last year and stepped against the new multi-party coalition.

Ramaphosa reacted to Trump's accusations and emphasized that the Eff was “a small minority party” and said that “our government policy is completely against what he said”.

Another man in the video who can be heard at another rally when singing the Lyric “Shoot the Boer” is the former President Jacob Zuma, who left the office in 2018. The video dates from 2012 when he was president. The ANC promised not to sing the song shortly afterwards.

Zuma then left the ANC and is now heading the opposition Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, which won more than 14% in the elections of last year.

During the meeting, Trump stopped a number of articles, of which he claimed that she showed evidence of white farmers in South Africa.

When Trump was clearly visible when Trump spoke and said: “Look, there are burdens everywhere. These are all white farmers who are buried.”

But the picture comes from South Africa – it comes from a report about women who are killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The French news agency (AFP) initially referred to the picture, and BBC Verify carried out a search and confirmed it as a Reuters news agency, which in February Dr. Congo City was rotated by Goma.