AfriForum CEO, Kallie Kriel. Photo: @kalliekriel
AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel said on Tuesday he was not concerned about high treason charges filed against the lobby group, and reiterated his call for the Trump administration to sanction President Cyril Ramaphosa and other ANC leaders.
“I will not be having any sleepless nights regarding the complaints of high treason against AfriForum as these complaints are baseless,” Kriel said in messages sent from the United States.
“If the state however decides to act against us, it will strengthen our position because it will show that there are indeed ANC leaders that abuse their power to govern against certain sections of the population while ANC leaders that have been implicated for corruption in the Zondo commission are not being acted against.”
He warned: “Certainly a court case would also provide a platform for AfriForum to show that the people that are really disloyal to this country and its people are ANC leaders, through their irresponsible policies and their corruption.”
The first case of high treason was opened about three weeks ago by the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which said on Tuesday the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) had taken over the investigation.
According to MK chief whip Nhlamulo Ndhlela the charges were brought in terms of the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956, “which includes acts like instigating foreign intervention in internal affairs with intention to harm the state”.
He argued that AfriForum has done precisely this by misrepresenting the recently signed Expropriation Act as enabling land seizures and encouraging the US to take steps that have resulted in real damage to South Africa.
Hence the group’s action “automatically falls within the prescripts of treason”.
The Riotous Assemblies Act in fact speaks to incitement to commit public violence and conspiracy to commit a crime and was largely repealed after the end of the apartheid era. Only three sections remain on the statute book, relating inter alia to incitement to commit violence.
High treason, which was often used during apartheid to suppress resistance to white minority rule, derives from the common law. It is defined as threatening the existence, security or sovereignty of the state, the clearest example being urging another country to invade South Africa.
A constitutional law expert said that while AfriForum’s lobbying campaign and similar attempts by anybody to badmouth the country abroad were arguably “idiotic”, these did not constitute any discernible crime.
“More is required, and if this kind of thing was in fact included under the common law definition of common law it would almost certainly be unconstitutional because it would be a limitation on your political rights”.
Lawson Naidoo, the executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, has expressed a similar view on the prospects of prosecuting AfriForum.
“They travelled to the US to promote their land reform and crime perspective. No matter how absurd AfriForum’s actions were, it doesn’t constitute treason under South African law.”
However Ndhlela said his party received legal advice that it should formulate its charge in terms of the aforementioned legislation.
“That is the advice we took from our lawyers, who said we need to base it on that particular statute of law which speaks to soliciting international action.”
The Hawks confirmed that they were investigating a case opened by the MK party, but said they could not disclose who instituted the other three cases. It is reliably understood that these complainants also accused trade union movement Solidarity of treason.
News24 reported on Tuesday night that Police Minister Senzo Mchunu told the National Assembly earlier in the day that SAPS was taking the investigation into AfriForum “very seriously”, and that the dockets were being handled by the crimes against the state unit.
The Trump administration last month declared diplomatic war on South Africa.
In an executive order signed on 7 February, President Donald Trump suspended all donor aid to South Africa. He accused the government of championing terrorism abroad and fomenting racial violence at home, and offered Afrikaners refuge in the US.
A White House communique issued on the same day said: “The United States will establish a plan to resettle disfavoured minorities in South Africa discriminated against because of their race as refugees.”
AfriForum has for weeks insisted that inviting sanction against South Africa had not been its intention.
Kriel is part of a delegation of AfriForum and Solidarity leaders who claim that they have in recent days visited the White House to deliver a memorandum.
In that document, they argued that the interests of South African citizens, including Afrikaners, can best be promoted by placing on ANC leaders to abandon policies.
Kriel declined to disclose who AfriForum met with in Washington.
But he told the Mail & Guardian it was apparent to him that the United States planned to maintain pressure on South Africa but that his organisation was pleading for the Trump administration not to take steps that would penalise the ordinary citizens.
“Our stance, and we also promoted that stance here in the US, is that South Africa should not be kicked out of AGOA and that actions against the country itself would harm normal people while senior ANC leaders would still sit comfortably in luxury,” he said referring to the African Growth and Opportunity Act under which local exporters have tariff-free access to the US market.
“Therefore it seems that alternative measures need to be taken. The US seems to be determined to take actions and if we can convince them not to kick us out of AGOA, they will take other actions.”
He added that he believed such steps would then be “targeted at senior ANC leaders”.
“Because it is not the people of South Africa that disrespects property rights, it is the president that signed the Expropriation Act. It is not the people who want to destroy Afrikaans schools, it is the president that signed the Bela act.”
It was a reference to the bitter debate about the impact of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act on mother tongue instruction in schools.
Kriel added that it was likewise not ordinary South Africans “who got involved in international conflicts”.
In an echo of the Trump administration’s foreign policy pivot to a position of “America first”, he added: “We believe the interests of South Africans should be put first and we should stay out of the conflicts but it is senior ANC leaders who moved to side against the US with an anti-Western policy… the US should rather focus on these leaders.”
The White House in a so-called fact-sheet setting out the rational for Trump’s decree, referred to South Africa’s stance on the conflict in the Gaza and its decision to accuse Israel of genocide in the enclave.
“Merely two months after the October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel, South Africa accused Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice.”
The government is routinely attacked for that case as well as its domestic policy on land and racial address by Breitbart editor-at-large Joel Pollak, who is rumoured to be in the running to become the next US ambassador to Pretoria.
Pollak on Monday posted a link to an article incorrectly stating that the government had brought treason charges against AfriForum.
“Instead of a delegation to Washington, the South African government has sent a message by opening an investigation into “treason” against domestic critics of its policies. Another step away from the democratic world — and from the U.S,” he wrote in X.
The government has to date refrained from commenting on Pollak’s pronouncements or what appears to be his highly undiplomatic campaign for the ambassadorship. But Clayson Monyela, the head of public diplomacy at the department of international relations, responded sharply to his post.
“You’re either a very dishonest individual or an intentional purveyor of misinformation, propaganda, lies & fake news. These charges were filed by private citizens & a political party (not the ANC or SA government). The police are under legal obligation to investigate & hand over the file to the NPA which will decide whether the state can prosecute,” Monyela wrote.
The presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kriel’s remarks.
But Ramaphosa last week said on the sidelines of the G20 finance meeting: “I understand AfriForum and Solidarity met with US government representatives, doing exactly what we as South Africans have agreed we should not do.”