very excited to welcome his excellency sir Raaposa, president of South Africa. Please welcome to the stage as well his excellency Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda. President Suramaposa and his Rwanda counterpart, President Paul Kagame are sitting side by side.
There has been a standoff between Kaggali and Pritoria over the conflict in the eastern DRC. While this is not the first time the two leaders are under one roof here and sharing a platform, the elephant in the room is the current development after 49 white Africanis left for the US and Trump's administration refugee program. We've raised our own concern because those people who are being enticed to go to the United States do not fit the definition of a refugee.
a refugee, someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious uh persecution. They don't fit that bill. They don't fit that description.
And I I had a conversation with President Trump on the phone and I he asked he said, "What's happening down there? " And I said, "President, what you've been told by those people who are opposed to transformation back home in South Africa is not true. " And I added to him, I said, "We were well taught by Nelson Mandela and other iconic leaders like Oliver Tambbo on how to continue to build a united nation.
Out of the diverse groupings that we have in South Africa, we're the only country on the continent where the colonizers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country. So they are staying and they are making great progress. It's a fringe grouping that does not have a lot of support that is anti-transformation and anti- change that would actually prefer to see South Africa going back to aparate uh type of policies.
Ramapos has used his working visit in Kivoir to highlight that South Africa wants to have a successful G20. We participate with a number of countries and the US also participates and leading to that summit where we will as South Africa hand over to the United States uh one would hope that uh it will all happen seamlessly and in an ordinary and uh well-managed manner. So we will see how this whole process will end up.
The current conflict in eastern DRC also dominated the discussions. I would like to complement rather than contradict what President Kagame is saying. the processes that have been happening on the continent either the Nairobi process or the Rwanda process or the AU process have been very very essential in building a foundation of peacemaking and also confidence building up to and including agreements that have been reached for a ceasefire between the belligerent up to and including the withdrawal of say the Saddak forces as they are withdrawing now.
I mean people may think that President Kagam and I are in conflict and some of you may have thought that there's going to be fireworks uh as we sitting close to each other. Well, I think there are several efforts going on at the same time. That's the problem.
And even uh that one we are talking about whether it is Qatar or the US or we can't say we have succeeded everyone is trying uh and again it comes back to us really u if you look at what we've been doing on our continent much progress has been made I think we can't say nothing has been done generally whether it was to do with the reforms and I think Africans have come together they have defined things and speak with one voice increasingly there's there's significant progress meanwhile President Ramaporosa hopes to consolidate bilateral ties with Kativoir the host of this year's Africa CEO forum and is one of South Africa's strategic partners in West Africa Kyle Kumalo CBC News is Johannesburg.
