South-Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) attend the first plenary session as part of the 2019 Russia-Africa Summit at the Sirius Park of Science and Art in Sochi, Russia, on October 24, 2019. (Photo by Sergei CHIRIKOV / POOL / AFP)
Diplomacy is a dark art. Its real work is seldom conducted in public and relationships between nations are like the proverbial iceberg, which only reveals its small tip above the water to the outside world.
That is why yesterday’s public rebuke of South Africa by US Ambassador Reuben E Brigety II was so extraordinary.
It was in all senses, a démarche – a protest made by a diplomat to a host government or vice versa. But it was done before the full glare of the media … and on the home soil of the host country. That seldom happens – which is a clear indication that Washington is furious with South Africa.
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The reason: the Americans claim South Africa is saying one thing and doing another when it comes to its stated policy of global “nonalignment”.
Brigety claimed that South Africa loaded arms and ammunition into a Russian cargo ship which docked in Simon’s Town harbour in December last year.
When asked how sure he was of that information, Brigety replied, in very undiplomatic language: “I will bet my life on it.”
US ire followed on resolutions taken at the ANC’s elective conference at Nasrec in December last year, in which the party stated that the US had provoked the war between Russia and Ukraine. Brigety described this as “outrageous, patently false and incorrect”.
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The anger in Washington could threaten the critically important African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) which, Brigety said: “provided SA with unreciprocated duty-free access to the US worth $21 billion last year”.
Let’s make no bones about this: we are very much the junior partner in this relationship and if anything goes wrong, we are the ones who will suffer.
Are the ANC’s Cold War loyalties more important to it than the economic benefits of a relationship with the United States?
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