South Africa has found itself at the tail end of the find out stage following years of the African National Party’s (ANC) self-serving fool around approach to foreign policy decisions. Like a spoilt child who has never received any corrective behaviour on how to act appropriately in a room of adults, the ANC has utilized its parliamentary majority to increasingly pursue foreign policy agendas that are antithetical to the national interest, contrary to our stated position of nonalignment and antagonistic to the interests of one of our largest trading partners, the United States (US).
Unfortunately for the ANC and more importantly, President Cyril Ramaphosa, the winds of providence have shifted, and the country is now faced with a triumphant President Donald Trump who has made it clear that American interests come first, and that peace is achieved through strength. Given the pace of executive orders flowing out of the White House and the willingness of the US President to implement strong coercive measures on US allies such as Canada and Mexico, why does the ANC continue to act as though there are no consequences to poking the proverbial Trumpian bear?
Now, should one limit their focus and attention to the content of news articles and opinion pieces that emanate from the majority of South African media institutions, one may be forgiven for arriving at the conclusion that Trump is an ignorant racist American imperialist that surrounds himself with a shadowy cabal of billionaires, led by Elon Musk, who are driven by misinformation and seek to bully South Africa for its well-meaning and progressive policy actions.
However, I ask the reader to bear with me as we seek to understand the truth of the matter as the Americans may see it, through sober analysis as well as a brief overview of a few historical actions undertaken by the ANC government that have led to this point.
Land confiscation
President Trump stated, “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly […] I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”.
On the land confiscation statement, to date there is no evidence that the South African government has successfully expropriated land without compensation, however, contrary to President Ramaphosa’s supposition that the recently adopted Expropriation Act is “guided by the constitution”, the Act contradicts Section 25 of the Constitution, specifically Section 25 (2)(b) which states the following:
“Property may be expropriated only in terms of law of general application – subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.”
This means that there are only two methods by which the amount of compensation can be fixed. It can either be fixed by agreement by those affected, or it can be decided or approved by a court. There is no provision in the Constitution which would allow the decision to be decided by the expropriating authority and as such this Act serves as a Trojan Horse for the ANC to sneak in expropriation without compensation through the backdoor following their failure to amend section 25 of the Constitution on the 7th of December 2021. Furthermore, the Act’s procedures for expropriation are heavily in favour of the state which may be inconsistent with Section 33 of the Bill of Rights which emphasizes the need of just administrative action, rather than expropriation procedures that disproportionally favour the state as opposed to the citizen.
Potential investigation
We now move onto what any potential investigation by American authorities may focus on, with respect to the allegation that the South African government has taken positions against the US and its allies, while bearing in mind that the US is widely considered to have one of the most extensive and sophisticated intelligence gathering networks globally, regardless of how the reader may feel about its leaders.
Firstly, it is likely that the investigation would reveal, that contrary to its stated stance of nonalignment, the South African Government under the ANC has a long history of supporting US adversaries such as Hamas, which is a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization funded by the Islamic regime of Iran. In addition, the ANC continues to seek closer ties with both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as well as the Russian Federation.
This may be considered to contradict South Africa’s claims of a foreign policy based on human rights as all three actors have been accused of gross human rights violations, from allegations of war crimes committed by Russian occupying forces in Ukraine, including the forceful separation and deportation of Ukrainian children into Russian territory, to China’s persecution of religious minorities in Xinjiang.
Additional incidents, such as the infamous Lady R incident, whereby a cargo vessel of the same name that had been sanctioned by the US for alleged weapons shipments and is believed to form part of Russia’s “Shadow Fleet”, which assists in the movement of goods for the Russian military in a clandestine fashion, was allowed to dock at the Simon’s Town naval base with its Automatic Identification System (AIS) turned off under the cover of darkness in order to allow for the transfer of arms in December of 2022.
Continuing with the theme of nautical diplomatic missteps, South Africa shortly thereafter hosted offshore naval exercises with Russia and China between the 17th and 27th of February 2023, coinciding with the anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. This further antagonized US interests given that the southern tip of Africa is considered to be a theatre of vital geostrategic competition should tensions between the US and the PRC continue to rise given the ease by which a relatively minor military power, such as the Houthis, could impact global shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Simon’s Town
In addition, the fact that the port of Simon’s Town could allow any ships or more importantly nuclear powered and armed submarines to gain access to the South Atlantic as well as African ports on the west coast, which may be seen as a strategic threat to the defence of the US east coast by America strategic planners.
One could go on to mention a list of other incidents, such as the fact that former US and NATO fighter pilots were recruited to train Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) pilots at the Test Flying academy of South Africa or the ANC’s continued participation in a political training school in Tanzania, which is funded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that seeks to instil CCP ideology and attempts to encourage the adoption of the CCP system of party run authoritarian governance to the African continent.
Coincidently, another participant to the Nyerere Leadership School is the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) which recently has been accused of using electoral fraud and political violence to secure the election on the 9th of October 2024, despite widespread concerns raised regarding the integrity of the electoral process by other international and regional observer missions, President Cyril Ramaphosa applauded the National Electoral Commission (CNE) for the professional manner in which they conducted the elections in a media statement released on the 17th of October 2024, despite the implications that a further destabilization of Mozambique may have on South Africa.
Take foreign policy seriously
A prosperous South Africa needs to take its foreign policy seriously, our current Minister of Foreign Affairs, whom is now tasked with dealing with South Africa’s diplomatic fallout, just so happens to be the same person who was in charge of the Justice Ministry that contributed to this fallout by taking one of the US’s closest allies to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in what the Americans perceived to be a politically motivated case against Isreal at the behest of the Iranian regime.
We need urgent economic growth in order to lift up our people from poverty, not dangerous redistribution policies that may be written in vague yet nice sounding terms but are likely to only benefit a small portion of politically connected elites at the cost of the general populace. This means we have to look at who are our greatest partners that may enable further economic growth, which despite statements from the “progressive” left, does not seem to include either Russia or China who constitute 3,56% and 0,02% of South Africa’s foreign liabilities (foreign investment in South Africa).
Both of whom we trade with at a significant trade deficit, but instead, prosperous and democratic western nations such as the US which constitutes 28,66% of South Africa’s foreign liabilities and with whom we enjoy a significant trade surplus with, as recorded in the South African Reserve Banks Quarterly Bulletin for December 2024.
In closing, I would like to state that it is not the writer’s intention that South Africa prostrates itself at the feet of Western interests, but to rather act according to our stated intentions in a genuinely nonaligned and pragmatic manner on the world’s stage with the implicit goal of putting the national interests of South Africa first and not the interests of a small group of champagne communist elites that have already proved that they can’t be trusted with public funds nor the regular provision of electricity, so the question remains, why should we trust them with our foreign policy?
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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