White South Africans will stand to benefit from the EFF's land policies, party leader Julius Malema told HuffPost SA in an interview on Friday.
"I never said there is no white man who will get a piece of land in South Africa," he said. "They stand to benefit from it. Why? Because South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white."
Watch the rest of his comments above.
It was a dramatic climbdown from his remarks outside the Newcastle Magistrate's Court earlier this month about land and white privilege. Malema's statement: "We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now," shocked many.
The bill of rights contained in South Africa's Constitution forbids free speech that leads to the "incitement of imminent violence" or "advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm."
But Malema said his statements had been misconstrued and recast them as mere caveats, saying that he does not know what the future may hold.
Whites have naturalised in this country. We cannot imagine South Africa without white people. There's no white person who is going to be driven into the sea.
"When I said "at least for now: I'm saying to you I'm not a prophet, I wouldn't know what's going to happen in the future."
He appeared briefly in court on 7 November when he made the statements. He is being charged under the 1956 Riotous Assemblies Act after encouraging people to occupy privately owned land. The EFF is challenging the validity of the law.
In his original statement outside the court Malema said that when whites arrived in South Africa, they had committed "a black genocide" when blacks were dispossessed of their land. "They found peaceful Africans here. They killed them. They slaughtered them like animals. We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now. What we are calling for is the peaceful occupation of the land and we don't owe anyone an apology for that."
On Friday he told HuffPost SA that white South Africans had overreacted to the remark.
"They are not scared that Malema is going to kill them. No! They are scared that Malema is going to tamper with [their] privilege," he said. "White people must stop being cry babies. They are too sensitive. They are cry babies."
But Malema struck a more conciliatory tone elsewhere in the interview, saying that he couldn't imagine South Africa without white people.
"Whites have naturalised in this country. We cannot imagine South Africa without white people. There's no white person who is going to be driven into the sea."
Watch more from our interview with Malema here: