South Africa has staunchly rejected a report published on the website of the US Department of State about human rights practices in the country. The document claims that South Africa's human rights situation had "significantly worsened during the year," and references the ongoing debate on land reform.

In particular, the paper highlights the signing of the now infamous Expropriation Bill last year, classifying this move as a "worrying step towards land expropriation of Afrikaners and further abuses against racial minorities in the country." Signed into law in January, the Expropriation Act states that the South African government can legally take private property for public use — but also spells out fair compensation and only allows seizure in certain instances.

The South African government meanwhile has stressed on multiple occasions that the Expropriation Act only aims "to provide for the expropriation of property for a public purpose or in the public interest."  

Farms, land reform and two disturbing pigs

The document by the US Department of State further alleges that the rate of extrajudicial killings in South Africa has also been growing. It singled out recent reports about two women who were murdered on a farm and whose bodies were later fed to pigs, attempting to link this incident to the government.

US President Donald Trump's administration had previously gone as far as accusing South Africa of deliberate violence against the minority white Afrikaner group, saying that thousands were actively fleeing the country. Some who are or were close to Trump, including his billionaire former top adviser Elon Musk, even claimed that South Africa was committing a genocide against white people — a claim which has widely been rejected by the vast majority of South Africans.

Analyst and author Hamilton Wende — himself a white South African — told DW earlier this year that anyone who thinks that white people are being massacred is part of a "right-wing extremist viewpoint, which is not reflective of ... what the government thinks, and of what the country thinks generally."

President Trump launched a resettlement program for white Afrikaners to the US as refugees earlier this year, doubling down on his unfounded narrative that authorities in South Africa were allegedly complicit in actions that amount to an infringement of the rights and lives of these people.

South Africa hits back, calls US report 'ironic'

As was the case with all previous accusations leveled against South Africa, the government has also dismissed the latest reports squarely, saying they were "deeply flawed" and "inaccurate" while failing "to reflect the reality of our constitutional democracy."

While expressing its general disappointment with the US Department of State document, the government also clarified the facts behind some of the specific claims made in the report, saying that the report had been compiled in a manner which was based "on acontextual information and discredited accounts."

Among other things, the government stressed that it had nothing to do with the deaths of the two women, pointing to independent media reports which explain that the women had been killed by a farm owner who is also accused of forcing one of his workers to feed their bodies to pigs.

Furthermore, South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) also said in a statement that is was "ironic" that as a country which had recently withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council, the US should make assessments on the issue of human rights in the first place.

South Africa and the Middle East conflict

Thapelo Tselapedi, a politics and international studies lecturer at South Africa's Rhodes University, believes that the US is trying to drum up negative publicity about South Africa.

Tselapedi told DW that this is in response to South Africa's case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in late 2023.

According to Tselapedi, the latest report by the Department of State is an attempt to chip away at "the international standing of South Africa when it comes to the ICJ case against Israel" by making South Africa look like it has no moral ground to question Israel on account of alleged irregularities with its own human rights record.

South Africa had filed a case against Israel at the ICJ, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, which generated great international interest and garnered support by governments widely considered hostile to the US, such as Iran.

Tselapedi also asserts, however, that most other countries are likely aware of this deliberate approach to try to undermine South Africa's image, and that the government should be undeterred by such interventions.

Diplomatic stand-off 

DIRCO meanwhile proactively drew attention in its response to a recent assessment from the United Nations Human Rights Office, which described South Africa's Expropriation Act as a "critical step in addressing the country's racially imbalanced land ownership." 

"This recognition from the UN’s primary human rights body underscores the integrity of our legislative processes aimed at rectifying historical injustices in a constitutional and human-rights-based manner," DIRCO added.

Former South African ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, meanwhile, also shared the government's view that the Expropriation Act is being used as a scapegoat to draw attention away from the ICJ case against the Israeli government, which he said did not sit well with many in Washington.

In response, Rasool was promptly expelled from the US after being declared persona non grata by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

A BRICS threat

Tselapedi meanwhile also emphasized the fact that South Africa's role in the BRICS bloc of nations might also feature prominently in the US's reasoning to try to taint the nation's reputation amid threats that BRICS' members might be launching their own currency.

This ultimately would weaken the US-dollar standard as the world's foremost reserve currency, while affecting economies and their trade practices around the world. Trump himself has warned that he would do anything in his power to stop this plan from succeeding.

The drive for a BRICS currency is chiefly being led by China and RussiaHowever, the extent of South Africa's volatility in this geopolitical game could already be felt when Trump was reelected last November. The South African Rand plummeted on the news that Trump would be returning to the White House.

Having now been slapped with 30% tariffs by the US and having suffered severe cuts in USAID since the beginning of the year, South Africa has been hard hit by the Trump administration.

Tselapedi, however, notes that the government can perhaps find some solace in the fact that official reports published by the US under President Trump are increasingly being viewed "with suspicion and caution" around the globe.

Edited by: Sertan Sanderson