The FW de Klerk Foundation has appealed to US President Donald Trump to reconsider phased cuts to PEPFAR funding for South Africa.
In a letter, Executive Director Christo van der Rheede warned that the cuts would disrupt healthcare for millions of people and weaken the Government of National Unity (GNU).
The Foundation rejected claims of a white genocide, saying violent crime affects all South Africans but hits poor township communities hardest.
It urged Washington to decouple humanitarian aid from political disputes, saying current US policy risks empowering extremist factions opposed to South Africa’s 1994 democratic settlement.
“We come from a particular past, and it’s a complex past- it’s the apartheid based past, and we need to have redress in many ways. Let a court decide on the merits of these things, but to then link those to the need for medical assistance, or health assistance is absolutely immoral in our view. That’s why we appealed to the American administration, to reconsider their views on why they are actually cutting back on the PEPFAR assistance,” Van der Rheede explained.
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