We will not be dictated to’ - Nelson Mandela’s grandson says in response to Trump tweet

President Donald Trump’s tweet on farm killings and land expropriation without compensation in South Africa “smacks of arrogance and ignorance”.

That is what former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson‚ Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela‚ said in a statement on Thursday.

“President Donald Trump’s unfortunate tweet shows disrespect for South Africa’s sovereignty and our commitment to justice and redress. Once again‚ the United States leadership is on the wrong side of history and‚ like his predecessor President Ronald Reagan who openly supported the brutal apartheid regime‚ Trump chooses to be prescriptive by putting the parochial interest of the minority who benefited from the heinous apartheid system above those of the majority of South Africa’s populace‚” Mandela said.

Trump tweeted in the early hours of Thursday morning: “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. ‘South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.’ @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews”

Mandela believes Trump should focus on his domestic challenges instead.

“We must tell him that we don’t need his interference in our domestic affairs and that the issue of the return on the land is an extremely sensitive issue as our people were robbed of the land over three centuries of colonial land grabs and six decades of apartheid.”

He added: “Trump once again demonstrates a total ignorance of reality. We will not be dictated to‚ threatened or pressured into accepting a land deal that perpetuates the injustices of the past. The same Trump that wants to dictate to South Africa what to do about the land question‚ has no scruples in legitimising the land grabs in occupied Palestine and affirming Jerusalem as the capital city of Apartheid Israel despite its status under international law.

“Such is the arrogance of the man and the duplicity that we have come to expect of him.”