Cape town. 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.
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