Addled ANC knocking on wrong door in US

ISA has no diplomats of any authority in place in the US, despite it being the second largest single country investor in SA

t isn’t uncommon for big newspapers to carry opinion pieces from the leaders of other countries. Normally these articles appear before the said leader visits, say, Washington, for an Oval Office meeting with the president, a speech to congress and a business lunch with CEOs from big companies.

It isn’t often though that a leader gets to write an op-ed piece for the Washington Post simply because he or she wants to be heard on an issue trickling through Congress. Normally, governments give that job to their diplomats on the ground.

South Africa though has no diplomats of any authority in place in the US, despite it being the second largest single country investor in South Africa, the only Western superpower and a nation with which our ties are rapidly deteriorating.

Which probably explains why, as the US House of Representatives debates a bill that could trigger a review of US relations with us (and after a raft of congressional complaints about our cosying up to Russia, China and Iran and our warm relations with Hamas), an op-ed appeared in the Washington Post this week written by none other than President Cyril Ramaphosa himself.

It wasn’t a very good read, I’m afraid. And its mere appearance bore the mark of a growing desperation in Pretoria. Has it lost control of the relationship despite frequent assurances to the contrary from the ludicrously named department of international relations & co-operation?

A recent visit to the US by foreign minister Naledi Pandor produced some TV of her sneering at questions about South African support for Palestine in the face of Israeli aggression. While it might have played well at home, our feeble efforts on the ground in the US seem to centre chiefly on grooming black congressmen and women and black senators to speak up for us.

Our ambassador to the US, Nomaindia Mfeketo, a hapless former mayor of Cape Town who was reported last year already to be leaving her post due to ill health, could not get the Black Caucus onside. Why would they?

What addled thinking inside the ANC gets black politicians in the US as the main door on which we knock? How embarrassing.

The congressman leading the fight for a review of US relations with us is a black guy.

“We might differ on some issues roiling the world today,” wrote Ramaphosa gamely, “but a strong partnership such as ours can withstand principled disagreements. Consistent with its history, South Africa has taken a nonaligned position in international relations ... [South Africa] has sought to advance an inclusive and representative world order [which] helps explain our position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”

Really? It surely depends on how much effort you put into the relationship. Our ambassador to Russia, Jeff Maqetuka, is deeply skilled and experienced but we struggle, it seems, to replace Mfeketo in Washington. It can only mean there are differences inside the ANC deployment committee itself over whom to pick.

It is in the party, not the government, that South African foreign policy is forged. In Ramaphosa’s office we might have a “strong partnership” with the US but ANC policy documents are routinely deeply insulting of “imperialist” America. And you’d be hard-pressed to find much history in ANC documents of our supposed fealty to non-alignment.

Even when Ramaphosa manages to stand up for what is right — his peace mission to Russia and Ukraine last year involved lecturing Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sanctity of sovereign borders and kidnapped children — the effect is smothered by dithering officials and party idealogues.

Trying now to combat growing US anger at our warm relations with what the US considers its rivals, if not enemies, without the best possible diplomatic skills on the ground, is just madness. Ramaphosa won’t get another shot at the Washington Post for years and there’s still a hostile Trump presidency to contemplate.

The problem with foreign policy is that while in the East ordinary people don’t get to change their governments, in the West they do, and often actually do. While you can talk to the top three or four people in Russia or China to get along, in Europe and the US — in democracies, in other words, public opinion matters.

Those US politicians taking a dim view of South Africa now are answerable to their voters and a hasty op-ed in the Washington Post won’t help much. What’s required is the unflinching, steady application of principle. You cannot treat Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “conflict” and the Israeli government’s bombardment of Gaza as an outrage. They are both appalling and consistency is everything.