CAPE TOWN, June 2 (Reuters) - For SJ Du Venage, a provincial council member for a right-wing party in South Africa's governing coalition, the decision to leave his homeland under a U.S. refugee programme created by President Donald Trump was shaped by longstanding fears.
A former youth leader in the far-right Conservative Party —which opposed the end of apartheid — he said he grew up fearing what would happen to white South Africans like him if they lost control of the country, and that those fears have persisted despite not having experienced tangible mistreatment.
Du Venage, now a 56-year-old council member for the Freedom Front Plus party in the Western Cape province, is among a group of Afrikaners applying to a programme Trump ordered to help South Africa's white minority, who he claims face racial persecution — an assertion the government rejects as a fantasy.
CLAIMS OF PERSECUTION DISPROVEN
All of Trump's individual claims of abuses, including allegations of state-sponsored violence and mass land seizures, have been disproven, but Du Venage still feels unsafe.
"When Trump's offer came, it was an opportunity from heaven," said Du Venage, speaking from a rented seaside house in Saint Helena Bay, north of Cape Town.
Du Venage said he had a seven-hour interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in Pretoria in February to assess his eligibility.
He has sold his home and completed medical and background checks required by U.S. authorities, and is waiting to find out if he has been accepted.
The life coach and former personal trainer said his refugee claim is based on fear of future persecution rather than past harm — either of which can qualify someone for the programme, according to the U.S. embassy.
Du Venage pointed to a threatening message he received from a stranger after organising a memorial for a white farmer whose 2020 killing became a racial flash point.
"I was asked in the questionnaire who do I think wants to kill me, and I don't really know," he said, adding that he believed his activism around farm murders had made him a target.
Murders of white farmers make up a small fraction of South Africa's high homicide rate, which overwhelmingly affects Black people, but they have become a focal point for right-wing activists domestically and internationally.
The United States has admitted more than 6,000 South Africans as refugees since last year, according to State Department data, and recently raised the annual cap to 17,500 to allow more white South Africans to enter, even as broader refugee programmes have been frozen.
WHITE VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVE CHALLENGED
South Africa considers the scheme a privileged immigration pathway for Afrikaners — white South Africans mostly descended from Dutch settlers — and disputes claims that they face systemic persecution.
"There is a very well-organised lobby in South Africa that is emphasising white victimhood, and that is being hugely emboldened by Donald Trump," said Fanie Du Toit, executive director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, a South African think-tank.
Data does not support the claim that white South Africans as a group are oppressed or unsafe, said Du Toit, a member of "Afrikaners for South Africa," a group speaking out against this narrative.
In a nationally representative survey conducted by the institute in 2022, about three in four white respondents said they never or rarely felt unsafe walking in their neighbourhood, and a similar proportion described their living conditions as good. By contrast, only one third of Black respondents described their living conditions as good.
Even within Afrikaner political circles, support for emigration is limited.
Freedom Front Plus leader Corne Mulder told Reuters that while he appreciated Trump's attention, he would prefer the U.S. assist Afrikaners in South Africa, since only a small minority want to leave.
Du Venage, who is not an elected public representative but serves on the party's internal structures, said he expects the transition to the U.S. to be difficult and hopes to be placed somewhere with weather similar to Cape Town's.
"The feedback that we get is there is a small percentage that's very lucky, that land in a nice place with a lot of support, but a lot of our people are really struggling," he said.
(Reporting by Esa Alexander in Saint Helena Bay and Nellie Peyton;Editing by Tim Cocks and Ros Russell)
