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EFF CONDEMNS DONALD TRUMP’S CALL TO SHOOT MINNEAPOLIS PROTESTERS AND POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST AFRICAN-AMERICANS

Friday, 29 May 2020

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ condemns in the harshest terms the calls by the

megalomaniac President of the United States Donald Trump for the shooting of protesters

in the state of Minneapolis. The short-fused and erratic Trump has once again displayed

that he is not fit to hold public office, no less the office of President of a country that holds

so much power in the modern world.

On the 25th of May 2020 George Floyd was murdered by police officers of the state of

Minneapolis. In a graphic video, Floyd is seen pleading for air as one officer restricts him

with a knee placed firmly on his neck for several minutes. Floyd pleaded with these officers

and is heard saying “I can’t breathe”, yet no mercy was shown. Outraged protesters from

across the City have been engaged in mass demonstrations since the effective lynching of

George Floyd, which represents a perverted culture of anti-black racism that is

perpetuated by law enforcement in the United States of America.

The rage of protesters against the lynching of George Floyd is a response to a persistently

violent system that criminalises black people in the US and treats them with utter disdain

and disregard. Donald Trump sits at the helm of this broken society and represents a

modern-day slave master who would instruct the killing of any political dissent within his

plantation. Instead of calling for justice for George Floyd and initiating structural reform to

historically anti-black police and criminal justice system, Trump targets those who demand

justice for Floyd, labelling them as “thugs” and deploying the army to “shoot” as a means

of returning things to order.

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The EFF condemns Donald Trump’s public declaration of hate and violence and calls for

speedy prosecution of the police officers implicated in the murder of George Floyd. We

send our solidarity to the loved ones of George Floyd and all activists in the United States

demanding change and an end to racial prejudice that dominates black people in the US

and ends black lives at will.

We call on Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately convene a meeting with representatives of the

US Embassy in South Africa to call for the recalling of the deployment of the military in

Minneapolis against protesters. The US Embassy must call on Trump to seize his

senseless actions should the US wish to maintain relations with South Africa, a nation

which prides itself on a history of resistance against racial prejudice.

These activists protest because as echoed by George Floyd in his last moments, they

cannot breathe. South Africa cannot maintain civil, diplomatic relations with a nation that

deploys the military to shoot individuals who revolt against injustice.

Trump represents a degenerative element in global politics that must be called out and

condemned whenever it tears its ugly head. His right-wing posture and thoughtless call for

the murder of activists through the use of state machinery must be condemned by all

progressive forces across the world.