SA needs to walk the nonalignment talk

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his weekly letter to the nation yesterday, made an impassioned defence of South Africa’s foreign policy of global non-alignment. Yet, at the same time, he confirmed the ANC government’s leaning towards Russia.

He did this by describing the Russian invasion of a sovereign country – Ukraine – as “a contest between Russia and the West”.

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In other words, South Africa accepts the Russian version of events that Western expansionism forced it to invade its neighbour. He also referred to the invasion as “the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict”, as if it was a sort of even-sided tussle on the playground.

Some kind of non-alignment that is. At least he hasn’t referred to the Ukraine war as a “special military operation”, which is Moscow’s terminology.

Well, yet, anyway… Not that we should have expected anything different, given that, in the UN General Assembly last year, South Africa wouldn’t support a resolution condemning the invasion.

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The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of the resolution – 141 votes to five against. South Africa was one of 35 countries which abstained.

Ramaphosa tried to portray South Africa as an “honest broker” – which it certainly has been in the past, as in Northern Ireland, where the president himself and other members of the Codesa negotiating team helped bring parties together to eventually sign the Good Friday peace agreement.

On the other hand, there is, no doubt, an element of pressure coming from the United States, particularly in the light of their belief that SA sold weapons to Russia – and perhaps Ramaphosa is correct to characterise that as “bullying”, especially as the threat of the cancellation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act was held over us by US ambassador Reuben Brigety II.

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But, if we talk the talk about non-alignment, we need to walk that walk.