Johannesburg (Reuters) -US President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video that was taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he wrongly presented on Wednesday as proof of massive murders of white South Africans.
“These are all white farmers who are buried,” said Trump, who held a print of an article, accompanied by the photo during a controversial Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In fact, the video, published by Reuters on 3 February and subsequently verified by the facts control team of the news agency, showed humanitarian employees who cancel body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was taken from Reuters images included after deadly battles with M23 rebels supported by Rwanda.
The blog post showed Ramaphosa by Trump during the White House meeting was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflicts and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo.
The message did not prepare the image, but identified it as a “YouTube Screen Grab” with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which has credited Reuters.
The White House did not respond to a request for comments. Andrea Widburg, editor -in -chief at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, wrote as an answer to a Reuters query that Trump “had misunderstood the image”.
However, she added that the post, which referred to what the Ramaphosas “called Dysfunctional, Marxist Government obsessed by race,” had “pointed to the increasing pressure exerted on white South Africans”.
The images from which the photo was taken shows a mass gay after an M23 attack on Goma, filmed by Reuters Video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty.
“That day it was extremely difficult for journalists to come in … I had to negotiate directly with M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to be able to film,” said Al Katanty. “Only Reuters has video.”
Al Katanty said that seeing Trump would keep the article with the screengrab of his video like a shock.
“Given the whole world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in DRC to convince President Ramaphosa that white people are killed by black people in his country,” said Al Katanty.
Ramaphosa visited Washington this week to try to restore the ties with the United States after persistent criticism of Trump in recent months about the Land Laws of South Africa, the foreign policy and the alleged poor treatment of the white minority, which denies South Africa.
Trump interrupted the television meeting with Ramaphosa to play a video, which he said showed the evidence of genocide of white farmers in South Africa. This conspiracy theory, which has been spread in the extreme right -wing chat rooms for years, is based on false claims.
Trump then continued with printed copies of articles that he said that detailed murders on white South Africans, and said, “Death, death, death, terrible death.”
(This story is again filled to solve a typing error in paragraph 3)
(Raporing by Stephanie Burnett, Milan Pavicic, Nellie Peyton and Cooper Invone; Writing by Nellie Peyton; adaptation by Silvia Aloisi and Daniel Wallis)
