News24.com | Oscar van Heerden | The US ambassador's megaphone diplomacy stunt

The entire megaphone diplomacy by the United States ambassador to SA, Reuben Brigety, smacks of colonial powers wanting to dictate to its former colonies to toe the line or else, argues Oscar van Heerden.

So, it seems we sold weapons to the Russians, at least according to claims made by United States ambassador to SA, Reuben Brigety. Just a few months earlier, mind you, the US made similar allegations against China.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, stated that she hopes China will not give Russia lethal weapons or else there would be grave consequences.

The timing of our allegations is in keeping with either a disinformation campaign on the part of the US or its simply true on both accounts. As a scholar of international relations, I’m very worried about one and one thing only - the sovereignty of nations is sacrosanct in international relations. Should SA accept being bullied and cajoled into taking sides in an active conflict somewhere very far from us, and must we participate in sanctions against one of the warring parties? 

This concerns me more than anything else because where does SA draw the line? 

We know that there's already a trade war imposed by the US on China and that tensions are growing by the minute. We know that the package of trade restrictions on China concerns, among other things, technology (5G and Huawei). We know that though the US states that it supports one China, they are actively supporting an independent Taiwan.

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US President Joe Biden went as far as saying that they are prepared to defend Taiwan against China militarily. We also know that over the last few months, the US have opened additional military bases around China. It has entered into a pact with Australia in which they received nuclear submarines and cajoled the Philippines into agreeing to building more military bases there. 

So, it is conceivable that a few months from now, the US will bully us into taking sides between it and China. Failure to do so will, according to many in our business community, result in economic catastrophe or meltdown. I hear the word devastating repeated often. 

So, what must I surmise from this as far as sovereignty is concerned? I hear my fellow countrymen and women saying unequivocally that this does not matter in the realm of international relations, only the bottom line. You kowtow to the will of the dominant and the strong otherwise you face economic and other consequences.

The US ambassador, in his megaphone diplomacy stunt, finds the policy choices of the governing party befuddling and states clearly that if you look at the resolutions of the ANC conference, it is clearly anti-imperialism and hence anti the collective West and, in particular, the US.

SA trade with other countries 

Well, two things I would like to say here; one, the ambassador knows that the US government has a relationship with the SA government and not with the governing political party of SA. In other words, be professional enough to make an apparent distinction between the policies of the party and that of the government of the day. The very fact that we are reminded of the huge economic impact we must consider between us and the US suggests anything but an anti-imperial policy stance. More than 400 US companies are doing business in our country. How does this spell anti-US?

The EU is by far our biggest trading partner, and again how do the policy resolutions of the ANC negatively affect these trade agreements? The car manufacturers in the Eastern Cape and Tshwane are largely because of Germany and Japan. How do these policy choices of the ANC negatively impact these very real policy choices by our government? The ANC policy talks about privatising the Reserve Bank. Has that happened? It speaks of land expropriation without compensation. Has that happened yet? I could go on and on, you know, ambassador.

So, Brigety should not play politics as if he has no understanding of how geopolitics actually works. Weaponising trade is not how we must conduct our international relations. 

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Having said that, I’m not too concerned with the supposedly much-loved Agoa. No, there have been challenges with this preferential trade agreement for some time already. There have been complaints from the US, and they have bemoaned the fact that there exist preferential import tariffs for luxury vehicles such as BMW and Mercedes, for example. The US contends it was never the intent of Agoa and that it should stop. Also, we’ve had significant challenges with the last round of negotiations when the Obama administration threatened us with either allowing the dumping of US farmers' chicken or else no deal. We bent over backwards and had to accept such unfair practices in the end. So, how far must we go just to remain in Agoa? The US has been wanting us out for some time now already, and it has nothing to do with the Russia-Ukraine war.  

But having said all that, with regards to trade, this should not really be our main concern as SA. What must concern us is the fact that all our foreign debt is held in Treasury bonds and foreign loans schemes, of which the sole guarantors are Western banks in the US and Europe and if they should decide to scalp us, we will be in serious and significant trouble, to say the least. 

Devastating decisions

Secondly, there are also the obvious reasons why the governing party has that particular anti-imperialist stance which the ambassador finds so perplexing. Brigety himself participated in the anti-apartheid struggles back home in the US. So, he knows the role his own government played not only in this country's history but also on the continent. I need not remind him that the US was one of the very last countries to impose sanctions on apartheid SA. Brigety should also know the devastating decisions the US imposed on our country in the early 1990s before our first democratic election, insisting that we must destroy our nuclear arsenal (God forbid such weapons should end up in black hands). 

The destruction of our very sophisticated satellite technology at the time and, on top of all that, the total destruction of our long-range missile technology, too, set us back several years of research and development. For the longest time, his government benefitted from the crime against humanity and argued that people like Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and many others were terrorists. 

The destabilising efforts by the ambassador's government over the last few decades on our neighbours have been imperialist at its best. The role the CIA played in the murder of Patrice Lumumba and many others, such as keeping Idi Amin in power for many years at the brutal expense of the people of Uganda. There's the destabilising role of the US government in Somalia, Mali, Libya and elsewhere in Africa. The track record of the US suggests, Mr Ambassador, an understandable high level of anti-US sentiment, wouldn't you agree?

This entire megaphone diplomacy episode smacks of colonial powers wanting to dictate to its former colonies to toe the line or else. Surely this is not the low form of international politics the US would want to play? 

The strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must. The stick mentality in international relations will only further strengthen our resolve to move away from a great global power and a partner, which after all, we do aspire to, but choosing to be the abusive father and still expect the child to stick around, is folly. 

As for my South African counterparts in government, stop dithering and stand tall, take difficult decisions and execute consequence management where required, for goodness sake. Another simple fact I can share with you as far as international relations is concerned, and it’s a key principle is that governments want predictable allies. If you cannot stand for a clear rule or principle, you won't ever be taken seriously in the international geopolitical arena.  

Be all you can be SA and resolve this impasse sooner than I can say "cat in a hat" or face the very real consequences that will soon arrive at our doorstep.

- Dr Oscar van Heerden is a scholar of international relations (IR), where he focuses on international political economy, with an emphasis on Africa, and SADC in particular.

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