'Charge AfriForum and Solidarity with treason', says Black Forum South Africa

The Black Forum South Africa insists AfriForum must be charged with treason after the lobby group led campaigns in the United States calling for action against South Africa’s transformation and expropriation laws.

IOL reported on Monday that lobby groups AfriForum and Solidarity have faced unprecedented backlash in South Africa, after US President Donald Trump unleashed a raft of sanctions against South Africa, including cutting financial aid.

Chief executive of Black Forum South Africa, Advocate Kgagudi Morota said the actions of the lobby group threaten the independence of South Africa as a sovereign State.

“We emphasise, it is Black Forum’s positionality that AfriForum must be charged for committing the crime of treason. What they have done qualifies to be a crime of treason. You will remember that there are certain acts which, if a person can do, will qualify as a crime of treason,” he said.

“AfriForum has done one of them. The first one is the overthrowing of the State, the second one would be coercing a government violently to act or not act on a particular issue and the third one is pushing for constitutional change of a particular country.

“The one we feel is more relevant to AfriForum is threatening the independence of the State. By going to America, a powerful foreign nation, to lie and command them to intimidate, threaten the Republic of South Africa so that from now we will be scared to pass legislation in the country to address past imbalances. Their act threatens us to lose our independence as a State,” he said.

On Monday, IOL reported that the Jacob Zuma-led uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has opened a case of treason against AfriForum, accusing the lobby group of peddling false information about South Africa’s transformation and expropriation policies.

“As the MK party we are here, we came to open a case of treason against the AfriForum, based on what they have done,” deputy president of the MK party, John Hlophe, said speaking to journalists outside Cape Town central police station.

“You recall that there is an executive order which Donald Trump, the American president, has now issued against South Africa following the intervention that was made by AfriForum,” he said.

“We have just opened the criminal case against AfriForum because we want them to be questioned.”

In a brief media statement read out by Hlophe, the former judge said the actions of AfriForum are a treasonous betrayal of South Africa.

On the other hand, IOL also reported that the African National Congress (ANC) in Western Cape said it fully supported the legal action taken by its members Eric Kweleta, Phindile George and the Khayelitsha community against AfriForum, Solidarity, and other organisations which they accuse of undermining South Africa’s democracy and unity. 

“These organisations, backed by foreign interests, have engaged in misinformation campaigns, attempted to delegitimise the Government of National Unity, and fueled racial tensions,” said ANC Western Cape provincial secretary, Neville Delport.

He said the actions of the lobby groups violate key South African laws, including the Constitution; the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act; the Protection of Constitutional Democracy Act; the Treason Act and the Electronic Communications Act.

“The ANC Western Cape will not allow divisive, foreign-backed agendas to destabilise our democracy,” said Delport.

Last week, IOL reported that US President Donald Trump has made good on his promise to cut funding to South Africa over the government’s land expropriation policy and resettle white farmers whose land will allegedly be expropriated.

In a late-night Executive Order on Friday, Trump accused South Africa’s government of “egregious actions” without providing any evidence, saying the recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 would seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.

Trump said this Act followed “countless government policies” designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against “racially disfavored landowners”.

In addition, he also accused South Africa of having taken aggressive positions towards the US and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide against Palestinians in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.

“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” read the Order.

joinisayi.maromo@iol.co.za

IOL