White crosses shown by the US president are not graves, says the man who erected them

A man who organized a demonstration of white crosses in South Africa, which showed Donald Trump on Wednesday, said the US president was mistaken when he called it a “burial place”.

Rob Hoatson said the crosses were placed on the road in the province of Kwazul-Natal as a memorial for a couple who died on their farm in 2020.

During the time at the White House, Trump has shown that his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphos-video crosses to support his argument that white farmers are aiming.

Recognizing that his country was violent, Ramaphos rejected the idea that the minority of Africans was systematically killed.

“These are burial sites … More than 1000 white farmers and … these cars do not travel, they stop to respect their family member who was killed,” Trump said when the video plays in an oval office.

The 46-year-old farmer, Mr Hoarson, said that while he had no problem with the video used without his knowledge, as we know, “exaggerated” and he was pleased to set a record right about the vivid image.

“It is not a burial place, but it was a memorial. It was not a permanent memorial that was erected. It was a temporary memorial,” he said.

The crosses were created to mark the death of Glen and the species of raffrti, 63 and 60 years, which were Mr Hoarson’s neighbors and died on their farm in August 2020.

Two men were convicted of murder in 2022.

The memorial consisted of more than 2500 white crosses that stretched on both sides of the road near the pair. He has been removed since then.

“But the main problem here is not really whether it is a burial place, or it’s a memorial,” Mr. Hoatson said in the BBC, and continued to talk about the murder of white farmers, which call them “unacceptable” and “unnecessary”.

Asked how he thought, President Trump behaved at the meeting, he replied: “I think Trump put facts … At the foot of Ramaphos and asked him to answer them.

“And I thought the answer was somewhat pitiful. There was no answer.

“Therefore, when President Ramaphos said (last night), he never heard about it, he never saw it, you know it was specially addressed to him. I don’t buy it. I don’t believe it.”

In the Oval Ramaphos office, he said that there was a “crime” in our country, adding that “people who died through criminal activity are not only white people, most of them are black people.”

South Africa does not miss out races based, but the latest numbers show that nearly 10,000 people were killed in the country between October to December 2024. Of these, a dozen were killed in the attack on the farm, and out of 12, one was a farmer, and five or Zhivari, and four were black staff.

Some African activists noted Trump’s comments, Ramaphos, saying it was a “international murder crisis”.

But the leading political observer of African Peter du said the result of “months and years of exaggeration, hyperbola and misinformation, which are submitted to the American right ecosystem in a number of South African activists.”