Thousands of South Africans marched Saturday to demand respect for their nation's sovereignty after months of pressure from US President Donald Trump on issues from trade to race relations.Trump has clashed repeatedly with South Africa's government, hitting the country with high tariffs, berating President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office over discredited claims of a 'white genocide', and boycotting a G20 summit in Johannesburg last year.Marking Human Rights Day in South Africa — the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, when apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters — Ramaphosa's party called for marches 'in defence of our sovereignty and democratic gains'.The marches come 10 days after South Africa summoned US Ambassador Brent Bozell just a month after his arrival in the country for 'undiplomatic remarks'.'We cannot, therefore, have a white old man, who looks like he's deranged, tell us in our country, what to do in South Africa,' African National Congress Secretary General Fikile Mbalula said Saturday.Named as one of the favourites in the race for the ANC presidency — and thus potentially the country's leadership — at the December 2027 congress, he was speaking to thousands of supporters gathered near the iconic Hillbrow communications tower.Crowds dressed in green and yellow — the ANC's colours — flooded the wide avenues lined with skyscrapers in the centre of the country's economic capital. Another march was organised later that day in Cape Town.'We want to defend our country,' said demonstrator Siyanda Moloi, a 34-year-old construction worker.'I think they will get the message. You have to respect our president, our laws, our policies.'The US ambassador said it was hate speech for black South Africans to use a controversial apartheid-era chant, 'Kill the Boer' — a word for the country's white Afrikaner population.'I don't care what your courts say, it's hate speech,' Bozell had said in some of his first public remarks in South Africa.The ANC manifesto convening the rallies said 'The principle of national sovereignty is under attack from foreign and domestic forces.'Following in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's footsteps, Ramaphosa was ambushed during a White House press conference when Trump showed him video montages and photos containing a mix of inaccuracies and falsehoods about alleged attacks on white South Africans.The Trump administration has also clashed with Ramaphosa's government over South Africa taking US ally Israel to the International Court of Justice for allegedly committing genocide in its war in Gaza.Last year, Trump slapped 30-percent tariffs on most South African exports — the highest for sub-Saharan Africa.The US Supreme Court recently overruled Trump's tariffs policy.But South Africa is among 60 countries facing a US trade investigation that could lead to further tariffs.'They hate us,' said demonstrator Noxolo Skomolo, a 53-year-old real-estate agent.'We are protecting our constitution. We don't want them to bully us. This is our land and our country.'Trump has also criticised South Africa's racial justice policies, enacted to address historic inequalities left by the legacy of colonial rule and apartheid — but condemned by the American leader as discriminatory against whites.The call to march condemned a 'severe attack' on those policies.'Lies are being told about countries in order to justify punitive economic measures and direct foreign interference in domestic politics,' it said, without naming the US.March 21 marks the anniversary of the massacre in Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg, where at least 69 people were killed by security forces for demanding an end to the pass laws that limited black people's movement under white-minority rule.
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