Hardtalk

“The notion of a mass attack on the Afrikaner was misrepresented by those that might have conveyed the message. I mean, I’m an Afrikaner from South Africa myself. And I can say that I’ve never experienced something of that kind. We found it strange. So the source is misrepresented, unfortunately, something that just doesn’t exist.” Ione Wells speaks to Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States.In the 1990s, Meyer was one of the leading negotiators in the talks that helped bring apartheid to an end.Now he takes up his new post amid a serious rupture in relations with the U.S. President Trump has cut aid, expelled the previous South African ambassador and offered refugee status to white Afrikaners he says are fleeing persecution, claiming the community faces “genocide”.The South African government rejects that allegation. Meyer, himself an Afrikaner, explains why he believes Trump has been given the wrong picture and how his experience negotiating the end of apartheid could help repair r