South African President Cyril Ramaphosa defended the “Kill the Boer” slogan as a “liberation chant” Tuesday, refusing U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand to arrest opposition figure Julius Malema for using it.
Last Wednesday, during a meeting in the Oval Office, Trump accused South Africa of “genocide” and showed a video of Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party chanting “Kill the Boer,” “Kill the farmer,” “Shoot to kill,” and other violent slogans at large rallies.
Trump said that Malema ought to be arrested for incitement. Malema responded by repeating the slogan, both online and in another rally Sunday.
Ramaphosa denied that there was a “genocide” taking place — though others, like South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, later said the term “genocide” was appropriate, given the fact that over 650,000 people had been murdered since 1994.
“It is not a white genocide, it is not a black genocide, it is a human genocide,” Goldstein said, noting that Ramaphosa never condemned the “Kill the Boer” chant, even in the Oval Office.
South Africa’s judicial system has failed to enforce the law against Malema — even though South Africa’s constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, specifically prohibits “advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.”
Reporters confronted Ramaphosa on Tuesday at a conference in Cape Town about Trump’s demand, and this was his response:
[WATCH] President Cyril Ramaphosa says SA can’t be instructed to arrest anyone for the “Kill The Boer” chant. pic.twitter.com/FtgvtjAXHv
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) May 27, 2025
When it comes to the issues of arresting anyone, for any slogan, that is a sovereign issue. It’s not a matter where we need to be instructed by anyone that, “Go and arrest this one.” We are very proud, sovereign country that has its own laws, that has its own processes, and we take into account what the Constitutional Court also decided, when it said that, you know that slogan, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,” is a liberation chant and slogan, and it’s not meant to be a message that elicits or calls upon anyone to go and be killed. And that is what our court decided. So they will probably want to arrest people willy-nilly. We follow the dictates of our constitution. Because we are a constitutional state, and we are a country where freedom of expression is the bedrock of our constitutional arrangement.
Ironically, the South African government is currently investigating Afrikaner groups for “treason” for using their freedom of expression to raise awareness of the plight of white farmers, both at home and in the U.S.
A minister representing Ramaphosa reiterated earlier this month that the government considered such “misinformation” to be a “treasonous act,” despite constitutional guarantees of the freedom of expression.
