South Africa faces USA sanction threat like Eswatini
MBABANE – The debate on a Bill seeking to compel the United States of America (USA) to review its relations with South Africa is being quickened more than Eswatini’s proposed law on sanctions.
The US Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Bill on Wednesday, setting the ball rolling for the full House of Representatives to address it.
Just like Eswatini did when it commissioned a Pholile Shakantu-led government team to the USA last year, to present its side of the story, Naledi Pandor, the South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation was in the USA this week to repair damaged relations.
The relations were damaged by South Africa’s stance on the Russian war against Ukraine and Israel’s war against Hamas. The Bill requires Joe Biden’s administration to report to Congress explicitly stating whether South Africa has engaged in activities that undermined United States national security or foreign policy interests through support of Hamas.
Comparatively, the Bill condemning human rights abuses in Eswatini was filed on April 26, 2023. It was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June 2023. It is now before the Senate consideration. On the other hand, the Bill on South Africa is now before the full House of Representatives, one month after Republican John James and Democrat Jared Moscowitz introduced it. They introduced it in February this year.
According to the proposed legislation, contrary to its stated non-alignment, the ANC Government has been siding with ‘malign actors’, building military and political ties with Russia and China. It is stated that the ANC Government also supported a group that was designed by the US Government as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and a known proxy of Iran.
On Wednesday, James added an amendment, which also criticised International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor for urging pro-Palestinian activists to demonstrate outside the Pretoria embassies of the five governments, which supported Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Pandor, who visited Eswatini to hold meetings with government and stakeholders during the civil unrest of 2021, did not name the countries, but was understood to be referring to the US, UK, Germany, France and Canada. It must be said that the committee adopted James’s amendment.
However, an amendment by Scott Perry calling on the US Administration to end all foreign aid to South Africa was defeated. Perry said that: “South Africa’s foreign policy has long ceased to reflect its stated stance of non-alignment, and has begun to directly favour the PRC, (China) the Russian Federation and Hamas, a known proxy of Iran.
In that way, he said the attitude and stance undermined United States national security and foreign policy interests. “Why then must we continue to send money to a country that clearly hates our allies and consorts with our enemies?” Perry wondered.
MSN reported that James opposed Perry’s amendment, saying the US should not cut off its millions of Dollars of health assistance to SA.
According to the US-based publication, Anthony Carroll, a retired adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, agreed, saying he was pleased to see Perry’s amendment defeated. “This would have stopped PEPFAR funding and would have had catastrophic consequences,” he said, referring to the large US programme which has pumped billions of Rands into helping SA fight HIV/AIDS for over two decades. The same fund benefits the Kingdom of Eswatini.
Gregory Meeks, the Senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was one of several members of his party who opposed the
James Bill altogether. He said he was also concerned with some of Pretoria’s foreign policy stances, but the US administration was seeking cooperation with South Africa, a key partner and an economic driver in Africa and the Bill would thwart that cooperation.
He noted that SA had cooperated with the US to the extent of ensuring Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the BRICS Summit in South Africa last year. He also said the James Bill would duplicate the review of South Africa’s participation in AGOA – the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Democrat Jonathan Jackson also opposed to the proposed law, saying it did not advance relations.
Despite the differences, Jackson advised that the US and SA should seek opportunities for cooperation because South Africa, as a matter of fact, has a strong commitment to democracy and human rights. Republican Michael McCaul, Chairperson of the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, supported the Bill, citing the joint naval exercise which SA conducted with Russia and China in February 2023.
REPAIRING DAMAGE
Meanwhile, Minister Pandor is in the US trying to repair the damage to relations. She has talked to the US Chamber of Commerce and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Howard College in Washington. Observers believe she has generally been doing well – except for one significant blunder. This came when Dan Baer, Carnegie’s Senior Vice President for policy research, asked her about BRICS admitting four ‘authoritarian’ governments - Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt - into the group last year.
MSN reported that Pandor disputed his characterisation, asking ‘who makes these judgments? Because I don’t know this assessment that you’re making’.
Pressed by Baer on whether Iran is authoritarian, she responded, “I don’t know whether they are an authoritarian regime.
The object of the US-South African Bilateral Relations Bill is to require a full review of the bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa. It seeks Congress to consider the following -
(1) The actions of the African National Congress, which since 1994 has held a governing majority and controlled South Africa’s executive branch, are inconsistent with its publicly stated policy of non-alignment in international affairs.
(2) In contrast to its stated stance of non-alignment, the South African Government has a history of siding with malign actors, including Hamas, a USA-designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation and a proxy of the Iranian regime, and continues to pursue closer ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation.
(3) The South African Government’s support of Hamas dates back to 1994, when the ANC first came into power, taking a hard line stance of consistently accusing Israel of practising apartheid.
According to the Bill, following Hamas’ unprovoked and unprecedented horrendous attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, where Hamas terrorists killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis, members of the South African Government and leaders of the ANC delivered a variety of antisemitic and anti-Israel-related statements and actions. The proposed law provides that South Africa’s Foreign Ministry released a statement on October 7, 2023 expressing concern about ‘escalating violence’.
It is stated in the Bill that the SA Ministry of Foreign Affairs (International Relations and Cooperation) urged Israel’s restraint in response. South Africa is said to have implicitly blamed Israel for provoking the attack through ‘continued illegal occupation of Palestine land, continued settlement expansion, desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque and Christian holy sites, and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people’.
The US also accused the ANC’s national Spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri of issuing statements on October 8, 2023 that the devastating Hamas attack and the decision by Palestinians to respond to the brutality of the settler Israeli apartheid regime was unsurprising.
According to the Bill, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, accused Israel of ‘genocide’ in statements during a pro-Palestinian rally. It is provided in
the proposed legislation that Pandor accepted a call with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on October 17, 2023.
On October 22, 2023, it is mentioned in the Bill that Pandor visited Tehran and met with President Raisi of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was actively funding Hamas. On November 7, 2023, in a parliamentary address, Pandor called for the International Criminal Court to charge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes.
It is mentioned that South Africa, along with four other countries, submitted a joint request to the International Criminal Court on November 17, 2023, for an investigation into war crimes being committed in the Palestinian territories.
On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a politically motivated suit in the International Court of Justice wrongfully accusing Israel of committing genocide.
It is said that the South African Government has pursued increasingly close relations with the Russian Federation, which has been accused of perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine and indiscriminately undermining human rights.
The sponsors of the US Bill stated that South Africa’s robust relationship with Russia spanned the military and political space in the following manner -
(a) Allowing a United States-sanctioned Russian cargo ship, the Lady R, to dock and transfer arms at a South African naval base in December 2022;
(b) Hosting offshore naval exercises, entitled ‘Operation Mosi II’, carried out jointly with the PRC and Russia, between February 17 and 27, 2023, corresponding with the one-year anniversary of Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine;
(c) Authorising a United States-sanctioned Russian military cargo airplane to land at a South African Air Force Base;
(d) Reneging on its initial call for the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its forces from Ukraine and actively seeking improved relations with Moscow since February 2022;
(e) Dispatching multiple high-level official delegations to Russia to further political, intelligence and military cooperation.