YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – As South Africa celebrated Human Rights Day on March 21, U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that white South Africans had come under attack loomed large.

Human Rights Day was instituted in the Rainbow nation in 1994 in memory of the enormous sacrifices made by South Africans in the fight against Apartheid, particularly the 1961 Sharpeville massacre in which 69 protesters were killed.

Apartheid, implemented in South Africa between 1948 and the early 1990s, was a state-sanctioned system of racial segregation and discrimination. Under this policy, the white minority government imposed severe restrictions and inequalities on the Black majority population, affecting every aspect of life, including housing, education, employment, and political rights.

The system was designed to maintain white supremacy and economic dominance while oppressing non-white communities.

Its legacy was gross rights violations, including massacres, torture, and imprisonment. But it ended in 1994 with the iconic anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela winning in the first multi-party democratic election where Black people could participate.

U.S. President Donald Trump now claims that the white race has become a persecuted race in South Africa, a claim that has cast a shadow over Human Rights Day celebration.

It’s a claim not only debunked by authorities in South Africa, but by those the American leader claims are under attack.

“People in South Africa often complain about various issues, and those outside the country seem to scrutinize it under a magnifying glass,” said Johan Viljoen, Director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute of the South Africa Bishops’ Conference.

“The most recent controversy involved Donald Trump claiming there is genocide of white people and severe human rights violations occurring here,” he told Crux.

Viljoen dismissed such claims as spurious, and questioned the moral grounds on which America could stand to speak about human rights in South Africa. He criticized America’s failure to call out countries guilty of human rights abuses such as Saudi Arabia or Israel, and questioned how a country like the U.S. that is now cozying up to the Russian dictatorship could have the moral authority to question South Africa’s respect, or not, of human rights.

“It truly is remarkable. We undeniably enjoy more rights in South Africa than in the United States, where freedom of speech and freedom of association seem to have eroded,” he said.

“I’m an Afrikaans person myself, so I have the right to speak. And I can tell you now that amongst Afrikaans people in this country, the vast majority saw Trump’s pronouncements with ridicule because most of them went on social media and said there is no violation of our rights,” Viljoen told Crux.

“As a South African born in 1961, I’ve witnessed the transformation of this country from what it was back then to what it is today. Even 15 years after Nelson Mandela’s departure, the progress made here is nothing short of phenomenal,” he told Crux.

The President of the South African Council of Churches and Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Mthatha, Sithembele Anton Sipuka, agrees that progress has been made, even as he recognized that there still are gaps that need to be filled.

“We can take pride in celebrating not only Human Rights Day, but also in upholding a Constitution that prioritizes human rights. Our Constitution aims to ensure that human rights abuses as exemplified by the Sharpeville tragedy do not recur,” he said in a video message.

“Since 1994, significant strides have been made in South Africa to protect and promote these rights supported by an active judiciary, and a growing awareness of social justice,” the bishop said.

However, there is still room for improvement, he said, and called for the creation of an environment that allows everyone to live in dignity.

“As advocates for social justice, let us create a society that values and respects everyone by celebrating our differences to build a more inclusive and compassionate nation,” Sipuka said.

“Today challenges, such as high unemployment, strip individuals of their dignity. Gender-based violence devastates families. Abuse of elderly people often goes unaddressed. Discrimination based on sexual orientation remains prevalent, and incidents of bullying in our schools continue to occur,” he explained.

Viljoen explained further that there was “nothing in terms of the political or the legislative framework in this country that still needs to be covered.”

“The only thing that needs to happen now is that the backward sectors of our society have to catch up with where the mainstream is,” he said.

South Africa President Cyrille Ramaphosa called for “a renewed global human rights movement so that the rights and dignity of all people should be upheld. “

“As we reflect on the state of human rights in South Africa during this month, let us be proud of our achievements as a country. At the same time, let us recommit ourselves to working together to ensure our human rights culture is upheld and strengthened,” the president said.