Reuters
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US President Donald Trump showed screenshots of a Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of what he misrepresented as evidence of the mass murder of white South Africans on Wednesday.
“These are all white farmers buried,” Trump said. He held up a printed article with photographs at a controversial oval office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In fact, a video published by Reuters on February 3 and later verified by a news agency fact-checking team showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Sesame. The image was taken from Reuters footage after a fatal battle with the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.
The blog post that Trump presented to Ramaphosa during the White House meeting was published by American Thinkers, a conservative online magazine about conflict and racial tensions in South Africa and the Congo.
The post did not caption the image, but it identifies it as a “YouTube Screen Glove” with a link to a video news report on YouTube’s Congo praised by Reuters.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Andrea Widburg, editor of American Thinker and author of the post in question, responded to a Reuters question that Trump “misidentified the image.”
But she added that the post, which pointed to what it called Ramaphosa’s “dysfunctional, race-obsessed Marxist government,” “pointed to an increase in pressure placed on white South Africans.”
The footage photographed shows mass burial following the M23 attack on Goma, taken by Reuters video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty.
“It was very difficult for journalists to come in that day… I had to negotiate directly with the M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to allow filming,” said Al Katanty. “Only Reuters has the video.”
Al Katanti said he was shocked to see Trump holding the article in the screen glove in his video.
“With all the world in mind, President Trump used my image and used what he filmed at the DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that white people were being killed by black people in his country,” said Al Katanti.
Ramaphosa visited Washington this week and tried to correct its relations with the US after continuing criticism from Trump for recent months, claiming South Africa’s land law, foreign policy and bad treatment of white minorities that South Africa denied.
Trump suspended a televised meeting with Ramaphosa and performed the video. He said he provided evidence of genocide among white South African farmers. This conspiracy theory has been circulating in far-right chat rooms for many years and is based on false claims.
Trump then messed up a printed copy of an article that said, “Death, Death, Death, Death, Fearful Death,” and said, “Detailed Murder of a White South African Man.”
