Can Mbeki help repair South Africa’s ties with Washington?
· Citizen
US ambassador to South Africa Leo Brent Bozell III will, no doubt, point out that in his recent eyebrow-raising interviews with South African media, he was merely responding to questions about the role former president Thabo Mbeki might play in helping normalise relations between Washington and Pretoria.
He may not have made the suggestion himself, but that was almost made moot by his enthusiastic punting of Mbeki as the “best person” to calm the troubled diplomatic waters.
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Bozell pointed to Mbeki’s understanding of the “mechanics of global diplomacy” as being “better than anyone else in South Africa”.
That is a fair assessment of Mbeki, the aloof man who dreamt of an “African Renaissance” seemingly more than he worried about sorting out South Africa’s domestic problems – albeit those problems of the ’90s seem trivial by comparison with the mess we’re in now.
Whether it was diplomatic of Bozell to air his views remains to be seen: South Africans – and especially the ANC part of the government of national unity – don’t like to be told what to do.
And choosing a peacemaker for someone else’s country does seem presumptuous at the very least.
On the other hand, Bozell made the obvious point that President Cyril Ramaphosa has come up with no response to the “asks” of President Donald Trump, which including publicly condemning the Kill the Boer slogan and song.
The US government is entitled to decide who it lets into its country, so it is using the visa mechanism to impose sanctions on those in our government – and elsewhere – who support the “persecution” of “white Afrikaners” (Trump’s characterisation and that of our own right-wing groups).
It remains to be seen, however, whether the American strong-arm tactics bring about change… or whether they will unite fence-sitters behind the ANC in resisting foreign attempts at manipulation.