President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC must be furious that the Trump Administration is conducting much of its foreign policy toward South Africa through Afrikaner leaders.
Late last month three Afrikaner leaders met with senior White House officials and were told that the US had laid down four preconditions for a normalisation of relations. These are in effect demands for the ANC to get tough on farm attacks and rural crime, slam the chant “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”, abandon the idea of expropriation without compensation, and end black empowerment requirements for US firms.
In public at least, nothing much has happened since President Donald Trump met President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House in late May. The four preconditions now mean the stand-off in relations continues, until the ANC accedes.
Earlier this week the US informed SA that from next month a 30-percent tariff will be imposed, on top of the existing ten percent duty on our exports. We could also find ourselves on the wrong side of Washington on almost everything, which could make raising finance and doing a lot else much more difficult.
The Afrikaner leaders in the delegation were Corné Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front Plus, Gerhard Papenfus, the head of the National Employers’ Association, and Theo de Jager of the Southern African Agri Initiative.
They say the demands did not come at their suggestion. While these go to the heart of much Afrikaner concern, they speak to a wider constituency that is far from exclusively white. Had the Afrikaner leaders used their access to the White House to bring along a wider range of groups, they might well have generated additional open support.
There is a sizeable SA constituency to whom the demands speak. It is those who are sick of crime, see no place for protection of hate speech of a special kind, fear that their property just might be seized, and do not see benefits for the country or themselves of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies. The victims of rural crime and murder are largely black people, and there is a deep cynicism about the fact that BEE benefits the well-connected and not the masses.
Not overly demanding
It is not as though these are overly demanding conditions that would make the ANC go down on hands and knees. There is no demand that SA change its foreign policy or withdraw its case accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice. And there is no insistence that the ANC scale down contacts with China and Russia, or not place the Brazil, Russia, India, China, SA (BRICS) body at the centre of its foreign policy.
It is politically possible to meet the demands, over time?
Meeting them over the next few days in the run-up to the ANC’s National Executive Committee meeting is just not about to happen. But Ramaphosa could find language that might be dropped into speeches on a range of subjects to address the US concerns gradually, one by one.
Even if these demands were not communicated by quiet diplomacy, meeting them comes down to having adequate political will. And even with the high stakes, it does not seem to be there.
The first demand is that SA should classify farm attacks as a priority crime, and should adopt the same sort of urgency to rural murders as it does to rhino-poaching and cash-in-transit robberies. Politically that would seem to be possible, as the benefits would accrue to rural communities and not only Afrikaner whites.
A start might be to re-introduce a farm murder category in the crime statistics. Farm murders were reported separately until 2007, when these crimes were added to a wider category. A tougher stand on rural crime generally could also allow Ramaphosa to take his own video to the White House to address Trump’s allegations. It would be simple – this is the problem, this is our plan, and this is what we have done.
The second demand, for “a clear and unequivocal condemnation” by the ANC of “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”, as stated in a press release by the three Afrikaner leaders, is politically difficult. It is likely to be seen within the party and among the radical comrade parties as treachery. This should be straightforward, but because it is the ANC and South Africa, it is not.
The Constitutional Court decision not to allow AfriForum to appeal a lower court decision which declared that “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” is not hate speech is bizarre, and makes meeting this demand more difficult.
If it had the will
But that does not mean the ANC could not condemn this sort of speech if it had the will to do so. Why is other speech classified as hate, while “Kill the Boer” is not in this category?
The third demand for no land expropriation without fair market compensation is also tricky for the party. Ramaphosa only signed the bill into law in January, and any public backdown on its use would set off alarm bells among the party faithful. But even with a loud assurance that it would not be used to expropriate, the Expropriation Act could still remain on the books and satisfy the US.
Finally, the demand for exemption of all US entities from Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) requirements is politically difficult for the ANC. There is currently a strong pushback from members of the elite connected to the ANC on the arguments by the Institute of Race Relations, the Free Market Foundation, Sakeliga, and others for the scrapping of BEE. There would be ANC concern that a special exemption might be given to Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate in SA without meeting the requirement for a 30 percent shareholding by the previously disadvantaged, women and the disabled.
The ANC would also fear that exempting US firms from BEE would prise the door open for an end to BEE. Why them and not us, many firms would ask.
The US demands have taken us into new territory. The resistance in the ANC is likely to be strong, as they are scared that these reforms would ultimately undermine crucial interests and open the door to wider changes. With or without the US making these demands, reform will take place at some stage, particularly if we hit rock-bottom.
The US demands have put the ANC on the spot. They can weigh up the multiple pros and cons for themselves, but ultimately, if they have the political will, they will just have to take the leap.
But they probably won’t, and we just might have to wait for a reconstituted government of national unity to do this, at some stage.
[Image: deoniszaharov from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend