南非新任驻华盛顿大使有个人原因来反驳唐纳德·特朗普关于“针对白人阿非利卡人的种族灭绝”这一说法——他自己就是一名“地道的阿非利卡人”。
South Africa's new ambassador to Washington has a personal reason to challenge Donald Trump's assertion that there is a genocide against white Afrikaners - he is "a born Afrikaner" himself.
“他说的难道是指我们吗？”罗尔夫·迈耶回忆起自己第一次听到特朗普总统说出这番话时的想法。
"Is he talking about us?", Roelf Meyer remembers thinking, when he first heard President Trump say it. His response to the US president's claim is blunt.
他对这位美国总统的指控作出了直截了当的回应。他告诉BBC：“在南非，根本不存在针对白人阿非利卡人少数群体的大规模攻击行为；我的身份让我有资格站出来发声。”
The notion of a mass attack on the white Afrikaner minority in South Africa does not exist, he told the BBC, adding that his identity gave him the legitimacy to say so.
迈耶曾是20世纪90年代推动结束南非种族隔离制度（即白人少数群体统治）的主要调解人之一。今年4月，在美南外交关系急剧恶化后，他被任命为驻美国大使。
Meyer was one of the chief mediators to end white-minority rule known as apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s. He was appointed ambassador to the US in April, after diplomatic relations between the US and South Africa plummeted. In an interview with the BBC, Meyer said the facts about violence in South Africa had been misrepresented and he never got a clear answer about where this "misdirection of information" was coming from.
在接受BBC采访时，迈耶指出南非的暴力事件被严重歪曲了；他始终不清楚这种“信息误导”究竟来自何处。
In an interview with the BBC, Meyer said the facts about violence in South Africa had been misrepresented and he never got a clear answer about where this "misdirection of information" was coming from.
去年，特朗普在白宫与西里尔·拉马福萨总统会面时指责南非存在针对白人的种族灭绝行为，并为阿非利卡人设立了前往美国的难民通道。自去年以来，已有近1.3万名难民被美国接纳，其中除三人外均为南非人。其中就包括莉莉（Lielie）——她公开使用这个名字；她和家人从南非搬到了德克萨斯州，此前他们一直住在继父的农场里，以种植夏威夷果和香蕉为生。
Last year, Trump accused South Africa of white genocide in a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House and launched a US refugee pathway for Afrikaners. Since last year, nearly 13,000 refugees were admitted to the United States and all but three were South African. Among them was Lielie, the name she uses publicly, who moved with her family to Texas from South Africa, where they had lived on her stepfather's farm, growing macadamia nuts and bananas. Despite walls around the house, an electric fence, and eight bull terriers, she said she felt "fear the whole time" and that on three occasions she saw people entering her property.
莉莉表示：“尽管家里有围墙、电围栏以及八只斗牛犬，但我始终感到恐惧；有三次有人闯入了我们的住所。虽然没有任何财物被盗，我们也没有受到伤害，但我的丈夫的一些朋友以及我们周围的居民都遭到了残酷的袭击。”她还说：“自从通过特朗普政府的难民计划来到美国后，我的生活发生了很大变化，现在出门走动时感觉安全多了，我的孩子们也能在外面自由玩耍了。”
"Nothing was stolen, we weren't harmed, but there are friends of my husband, people that lived around us, they were brutally attacked," she said. She said since moving to the US under the Trump administration's refugee pathway her life had changed, she felt safer walking around, and "my kids can actually play outside". The Trump administration is planning to admit up to 17,500 additional white Afrikaners as refugees over the next 12 months, according to a notice sent to Congress on Tuesday.
根据周二向国会提交的通知，特朗普政府计划在接下来的12个月内再接纳多达17,500名白人阿非利卡人作为难民。
In a statement to the BBC, a White House spokeswoman said: "President Trump has provided a lifeline for Afrikaners, who are being raped, maimed, killed and driven off their property across South Africa.
一位白宫发言人对BBC表示：“特朗普总统为那些在南非遭受暴力侵害、肢体伤害、甚至被杀害、被迫离开家园的阿非利卡人提供了救命稻草。虽然南非政府及许多媒体都对他们的悲惨遭遇视而不见，但特朗普政府仍继续审理他们的难民申请——因为总统怀有人道主义情怀。”
"While the South African government and many in the media have brushed off the horrific lived experiences of this community, the Trump administration continues to process applications for refugee status because the president has a humanitarian heart." SJ Du Venage, who lives on South Africa's west coast, has been trying to move to the US under the new scheme.
居住在南非西海岸的SJ·杜·维纳奇（SJ Du Venage）正试图通过这一新政策移居美国。他是右翼政党“自由阵线加”（Freedom Front Plus）的成员，他认为“存在一种针对白人的政治迫害行为，尤其是针对农场主的暴力”。“他们显然有消灭我们的意图，”他说。
Du Venage is a council member of the Freedom Front Plus, a right-wing Afrikaner party, and argues that there is a "political drive towards killing white people, and killing the farmers on the farms". "There's absolutely an agenda to wipe us out here," he says. An Afrikaner lobby group is holding a vigil on Saturday with thousands of white crosses on Washington's National Mall to commemorate what it says are victims of "farm attacks".
一个代表阿非利卡人的游说团体计划于周六在华盛顿国家广场举行集会，会上会摆放数千个白色十字架，以纪念那些所谓的“农场袭击”受害者。
Claims of genocide against white South Africans have been discredited by every political party in the country, including by those representing Afrikaners.
针对南非白人的种族灭绝指控已被该国所有政党驳斥，包括那些代表阿非利卡人的政党。
"I'm an Afrikaner from South Africa myself," Ambassador Meyer said, "and I can say that I've never experienced something of that kind." Meyer said he would like to have a conversation with Trump about the reality of the situation, saying that as a "born Afrikaner", he has the "legitimacy" to speak about the subject.
“我自己就是一名来自南非的阿非利卡人，”迈耶大使说，“但我从未经历过这样的暴行。”他表示希望与特朗普讨论这一问题的真相，并强调作为“土生土长的阿非利卡人”，自己有资格谈论这一话题。
The ambassador helped negotiate an end to apartheid on behalf of the National Party, which was responsible for it, with now-president Cyril Ramaphosa also a key negotiator for the African National Congress party.
迈耶大使曾代表曾推行种族隔离政策的国民党（National Party）参与谈判，推动种族隔离制度的终结；现任总统西里尔·拉马福萨（Cyril Ramaphosa）也曾是非洲国民大会（African National Congress）的谈判代表之一。
He said the "trust" between the two men was one reason President Ramaphosa appointed him to help mend US-South Africa relations, as well as "the fact he also saw the value of me being an Afrikaner". "But I'm not here to represent the Afrikaner only," Meyer says.
他说，两人之间的“信任”是拉马福萨总统任命他来帮助改善美南关系的原因之一；同时，总统也看中了他作为南非荷兰裔人士（Afrikaner）所具备的独特价值。“但我来这里并不是仅仅为了代表南非荷兰裔群体，”迈耶表示。
Last week, the Trump administration announced visa restrictions for those South Africans who it said were responsible for "race-based discrimination" against white people. It also warned of further punitive actions if South African leaders did not address the issue. Police data shows the majority of victims of crime in South Africa, including on farms, are black. Farm violence, often motivated by robberies, is an issue but represents a smaller number of homicides in the country.
上周，特朗普政府宣布对那些涉嫌对白人实施“基于种族的歧视”的南非人实施签证限制，并警告称如果南非领导人不解决这一问题，将会采取进一步的惩罚措施。
While no politician disputes that crime is a problem in South Africa, many experts say this does not qualify as "persecution". Larry Bartlett, the former director of the US Refugee Assistance Programme, said it could even be "unlawful" to appropriate a programme defined in law for people who "really have no chance to go home".
警方数据显示，在南非，包括农场在内的犯罪案件中，大多数受害者都是黑人。农场暴力事件虽然时有发生（通常由抢劫行为引发），但在全国范围内的凶杀案中占比相对较低。
He said white people who were unlikely to qualify as refugee in law were taking scarce opportunities meant for those fleeing war or ethnic cleansing.
虽然没有任何政治家否认犯罪问题是南非面临的严重问题，但许多专家认为这种行为并不符合“迫害”的定义。
The programme has its critics among Afrikaners in South Africa too.
美国难民援助计划（US Refugee Assistance Programme）的前负责人拉里·巴特利特（Larry Bartlett）指出，将法律规定的援助资源用于那些“根本无法回国”的人，甚至可能是“违法”的行为；他认为，那些在法律上不符合难民资格的白人正在占用本应留给战争难民或种族清洗受害者的有限援助资源。在南非的南非荷兰裔群体中，也有批评者对这一政策表示反对。
"Why single out the white Afrikaner to say this group qualifies to flee to the US? This country suffers gender-based violence. Why not single out women?" Rudi Swanepoel, a pastor from Johannesburg told the BBC. Swanepoel thinks it is not persecution but a "loss of privilege" that is causing some Afrikaners to feel aggrieved. "To use the metaphor of a cake, 30, 40 years ago the white people of South Africa controlled the cake," he says. "Since democracy came, the obvious reality was we had to now start sharing that cake and those privileges." Alongside "rural safety", the Trump administration has raised other concerns about South Africa, including targets for companies to increase non-white employment and a law allowing the state, in exceptional circumstances, to expropriate land without compensation. These are aimed at redressing historic racial inequality.
“为什么偏偏要针对南非荷兰裔群体来制定这样的规定呢？这个国家同样存在基于性别的暴力问题，为什么不去关注女性受害者呢？”来自约翰内斯堡的牧师鲁迪·斯瓦内波尔（Rudi Swanepoel）对BBC表示。
Meyer wants Trump's executive order against South Africa, which underpins the refugee pathway, revoked.
斯瓦内波尔认为，让一些南非荷兰裔人士感到不满的，并不是真正的“迫害”，而是一种“特权被剥夺”的感觉。
He said South Africa had never prevented people from leaving and had addressed all the US concerns, stressing that the land expropriation law is awaiting a court judgement. "South Africa has challenges with the prevention of crime and with the combatting of crime," he said.
“借用蛋糕这个比喻，30年前、40年前，南非的白人掌控着这块蛋糕，”他说，“民主到来后，显而易见，我们现在必须开始分享这块蛋糕以及其中的特权。”除“乡村安全”外，特朗普政府还提出了对南非的其他担忧，包括设定目标，要求企业增加非白人就业，以及允许政府在特殊情况下无偿征收土地的法律。这些措施旨在纠正历史上的种族不平等。迈尔希望撤销特朗普针对南非、支持难民通道的行政命令。他说，南非从未阻止人们离开，也已经处理了美方提出的
But he added: "It's a problem all around. It's not rural. It's not farm attacks only. If you look at the total picture, the huge levels of crime in the black townships of South Africa are the biggest concern, proportionally, far more than anything else." He said he would encourage the US to help South Africa with resources on combatting crime, including by providing equipment to speed up reaction times. Meyer also has a message for Afrikaners protesting against "farm attacks" by laying white crosses in Washington. "It doesn't help us to raise a voice outside, if we are not committed to doing something inside the country," he says.