A Washington display organized by South African advocacy group Lex Libertas and the New York Young Republican Club placed 3,000 white crosses on the National Mall in remembrance of people the organizers identify as victims of farm murders since 1990, bringing renewed attention to South Africa’s exceptionally high violent-crime rate and the continuing dispute over whether white farmers are being targeted because of race.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Three thousand white crosses bearing the names of people killed in South African farm attacks were displayed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., as activists sought to draw international attention to decades of violence in the country’s rural communities.
The White Cross Project was organized by South African advocacy organization Lex Libertas in partnership with the New York Young Republican Club. The primary public vigil was held Sept. 26 as part of a two-day Washington program that also included a conference featuring victims and relatives of victims of farm attacks. Organizers said thousands of people visited the display.
Each of the 3,000 crosses represented a person whom organizers identify as having been killed in a South African farm attack since 1990. The installation was modeled on the White Cross Monument in South Africa, where crosses have similarly been used to commemorate rural murder victims.
Lex Libertas Executive Director Ernst Roets walked through the memorial and recounted several of the crimes represented by individual crosses in a video documenting the Washington display.
Among the cases highlighted were three members of the Viana family, who were killed at their home in Walkerville, south of Johannesburg, on Oct. 1, 2011.
Contemporary South African police reporting identified the victims as Tony Viana, 50; his wife, Geraldine Viana, 46; and their 13-year-old son, Amaro. Geraldine Viana was found in the main bedroom after being raped and shot. Tony Viana was discovered shot in the lounge with his hands bound behind his back, while Amaro was found shot in a bathtub with his hands similarly tied.
Police subsequently arrested several suspects on murder, rape and robbery charges. Investigators recovered property belonging to the family from one suspect and a firearm believed to have belonged to the Vianas from another.
Some accounts circulated after the killings described additional forms of torture, but South African police disputed portions of those reports at the time. Police specifically said they could not substantiate claims that the victims had been hacked to death or that the 13-year-old had been tortured with boiling water. Officials said the three family members were shot and killed.
The New York Young Republican Club participated in the Washington memorial after sending a delegation to South Africa earlier this year to meet farm-attack victims, community organizations and business leaders. The group said its partnership with Lex Libertas was intended to bring greater U.S. attention to rural violence, property rights and race-related policies in South Africa.
A wreath was also presented in memory of those represented at the memorial.
The installation comes amid a broader political dispute between the United States and South Africa over the treatment of Afrikaners, land policy and the causes of violent attacks in farming communities.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly argued that white South African farmers face persecution and has accused the South African government of failing to adequately address their treatment.
“White farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa,” Trump said in May 2025 while discussing his administration’s decision to admit Afrikaners to the United States through the refugee program.
Trump later raised the issue directly with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a May 21, 2025, White House meeting, displaying videos and other material that he said demonstrated violence and threats against white farmers. Ramaphosa rejected the contention that the country was experiencing a racially organized campaign of genocide and emphasized that South Africa’s severe crime problem affects people across racial groups.
“As South Africans both black and white there is no genocide here,” Ramaphosa said in May 2025. “We are not genociders. We are not committing any act of hatred. Act of retribution against or violence against anyone of a citizen even if they are not citizens of our country.”
The disagreement remains central to the international debate surrounding farm attacks.
Organizations including Lex Libertas and other Afrikaner advocacy groups argue that the brutality of some attacks, inflammatory political rhetoric and South Africa’s race-conscious land and economic policies warrant greater international scrutiny.
The South African government rejects claims that farm killings constitute an organized racial campaign against white people. Officials point to national crime statistics showing that violent crime affects communities throughout the country and that victims of crimes in farming areas include farm owners, employees, managers and residents of different races.
Official police figures covering January through March 2025 recorded six murders in farming communities. The South African government said the victims included two farmers, employees and a farm dweller and argued that the figures did not demonstrate attacks directed exclusively at one racial group.
Police officials also said that the two farm owners killed during that reporting quarter were Black, while one white farm dweller was among the other victims. South African authorities said they do not ordinarily categorize crime victims by race but released the racial information while responding to international claims about attacks on white farmers.
Those quarterly government figures do not resolve the separate debate over the cumulative number of people killed in farm attacks since 1990. The 3,000 names used by the White Cross Project come from the organizers’ compilation rather than a current official South African government count.
Farm attacks also occur within a country suffering from an exceptionally high overall homicide rate.
South African government figures released in May showed an average of approximately 58 murders per day during the preceding reporting quarter. Officials said crime remained at “unacceptably high” levels despite declines in several categories.
More recent violence has reinforced that problem. Two mass shootings on Sept. 27 killed 27 people within hours — 17 in a tavern attack near Johannesburg and 10 at an establishment near Cape Town. South African authorities have also been confronting gang activity, illegal firearms and organized criminal groups.
The White Cross Project nevertheless focuses specifically on people killed in farming communities and argues that those cases have not received adequate attention abroad.
Lex Libertas said its Washington effort centered on four issues: farm attacks and rural safety, political rhetoric that organizers contend can encourage violence, race-based legislation and property rights. The group also used the trip to advocate decentralization and greater self-government for minority communities in South Africa.
Three people directly affected by farm attacks — Amanda Platt, Heidie Taljaard and Leon Lotz — traveled to Washington to participate in the project and discuss their experiences.
Roets said the physical display was intended to move the debate away from statistics and toward individual victims.
“Seeing all these people walking among the crosses, reading the names and listening to the stories of victims was an extraordinarily moving experience,” Roets said after the vigil.
The Washington event also followed more than a year of heightened U.S. attention to South Africa.
Trump’s administration has sharply criticized Pretoria over land reform and its treatment of Afrikaners, while South African officials have accused the administration and its supporters of presenting the country’s broader crime crisis as evidence of a racial campaign.
Ramaphosa has acknowledged that farm killings and South Africa’s overall violent-crime rate are serious problems while rejecting the characterization of the attacks as genocide.
The latest official crime figures continue to demonstrate the scale of South Africa’s broader security problem, with close to 60 people murdered on an average day. At the same time, official data cited by the South African government show that murders in farming communities have included victims of different racial backgrounds.
Against that disputed backdrop, the 3,000 crosses brought the issue into one of the most visible public spaces in the United States — with each cross intended by organizers to shift attention from the political argument surrounding South Africa to the individual people whose deaths they say the memorial represents.
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