South Africa - USA relations: a recent timeline (2022-2024)
In my two recent articles on South Africa’s application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) I explained that:
claims that South Africa’s case at the ICJ are supported or funded by Iran have no basis, have largely been propagated by an organisation funded by the Israeli government and the source for the claims was an interview by a completely uncredible, alt-right commentator hosted by a Zionist talk show host on a Zionist radio station
documents recently tabled in the South African Parliament show that the government has been funding the ICJ application itself - the lawyers appear to have been paid tens of millions and the future cost has been concealed by combining it with other expenditures.
As I have said before, I support the substance of South Africa’s ICJ application. Nevertheless, I believe that it is important to understand its origins - both to better understand the real stance of the current South African political coalition and to understand some of the geopolitical maneouvring in the Middle East.
What reasons are there for believing South Africa’s application was tacitly approved, or even actively suggested, by the United States? To answer this question - in Part II - it’s crucial to first understand recent developments in South Africa’s relationship with the United States. To that end, I provide a detailed timeline of what I view as key events in the last three years.
South Africa-US relations (2022-2024)
[I have put my own commentary on some of these developments in square brackets]
17 January 2022: Ramaphosa centralises responsibility for South African intelligence agencies in the presidency as recommended by the High Level Panel chaired by Sydney Mufamadi (who was appointed as Ramaphosa’s national security adviser in August 2021)
24 February 2022: Russia invades Ukraine
31 March 2022: The Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Bill is introduced in the US Congress. It proposes that Congress:
(1) should regularly assess the scale and scope of the Russian Federation’s influence and activities in Africa that undermine United States objectives and interests; and
(2) determine how—
(A) to address and counter such influence and activities effectively, including through appropriate United States foreign assistance programs; and
(B) to hold accountable the Russian Federation and African governments and their officials who are complicit in aiding such malign influence and activities.
1 April 2022: Zane Dangor is appointed as Director General of International Relations and Cooperation
April 2022: Former intelligence minister Ayanda Dlodlo, having been reshuffled to be minister of public service and administration after the 2021 unrest in South Africa, formally resigns from her ministerial position and leaves for a (lower status) deployment to Washington [sending your most recent minister of intelligence to the capital city of a country with the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world and that appears to be partially hostile to you seems like a very bad idea…especially when that person feels like they have been unfairly scapegoated]
26 April 2022: After a call with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan, Mufamadi tries to distance himself from US suggestions that he shared their view on Ukraine
1 June 2022: former State Security Agency head, Arthur Fraser, lodges a criminal complaint against President Ramaphosa regarding the PhalaPhala matter [I’ll write a separate article on this soon]
21 June 2022: then-opposition party (now ‘GNU’ coalition partner) Democratic Alliance writes to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asking them to investigate the PhalaPhala matter
8 August 2022: Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor holds joint press conference with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Pretoria. They note that ‘there has been a hiatus of 8 years’ in having such dialogues and commit to having them regularly in future. Newly appointed ambassador Reuben Brigety is also present.
[Blinken makes remarks about the Ukraine conflict that are mocked worldwide when he says “if we allow a big country to bully a smaller one, to simply invade it and take its territory, then it’s going to be open season”]
15-18 September 2022: Ramaphosa visits Washington and has direct talks with Joe Biden [the official description is deliberately bland but the amount of time for engagement at this level suggests otherwise]
5 October 2022: the US Embassy says it will not get involved in a government investigation into PhalaPhala [this is largely meaningless because it is non-binding and does not relate to the US’s own capacity to investigate any US dollar-related crime but it is notable that the statement comes only after Ramaphosa visits Washington]
December 2022: Russian cargo ship Lady R docks at the Simonstown Naval Base, leading to controversy and speculation about its cargo (offloaded and loaded)
14 December 2022: Naledi Pandor leads the South African delegation to the United States-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington
7 March 2023: Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele, who was responsible for the State Security Agency, is moved aside and replaced by Ramaphosa ally Khumbudzo Ntshaveni [I will write separately about Ntshaveni who has been a crucial and very problematic operator in South African politics recently]
17 March 2023: the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russian president Vladimir Putin
April 2023: Ramaphosa sends a delegation to Washington including Sydney Mufamadi and Zane Dangor but the full details of the meetings held and itinerary are not released
9 May 2023: International relations minister Naledi Pandor discusses the purpose of the trip by Mufamadi to Washington and one (stridently pro-US) commentator notes that “the government has not been very forthcoming about the visit”
11 May 2023: US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, dramatically accuses the government of covertly sending weapons to Russia for the war in Ukraine, saying “I would bet my life” on it. This leads to a substantial decline in the value of the Rand exchange rate and an increase in borrowing costs for the government:
14 May 2023: Reports that Mufamadi’s trip relating to AGOA and the Lady R matter had been successful and Mufamadi himself denies any rift in relations
23 May 2023: Defence Minister Thandi Modise denies in Parliament that any weapons were loaded on the Lady R
13 June 2023: Senior members of the US Congress focused on foreign affairs write to Biden asking him to move the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) forum - originally scheduled to happen in Johannesburg in November 2023 - to a different location
30 June 2023: Suspended head of the SSA’s foreign branch Robert McBride does not have his contract renewed (but this is obscured by emphasising his assignment to investigate supposed sabotage at power utility at Eskom)
12 July 2023: former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang is extradited to the US from South Africa for money laundering-related charges [https://www.reuters.com/legal/mozambique-ex-minister-extradited-us-debt-scandal-trial-2023-07-12/]
August 2023: Putin does not attend BRICS Summit in South Africa due to likely enforcement of the ICC arrest warrant against him [The South African, and subsequently international media, speculated extensively about non-compliance with the ICC warrants but that was never likely, especially under Ramaphosa]
5 September 2023: the South African government publishes the summary of its report on the Lady R saga which finds that no weapons were loaded onto the ship
11 September 2023: the private intelligence analysis publisher Africa Report publishes a gushing piece about Mufamadi in which it mentions that, “He’s not only having the president’s ear – but Ukraine’s trust in a South Africa viewed as pro-Russia”. Mufamadi is also praised in the article by Stephen Chan, a reliable proponent of Western geopolitical interests who shares a connection with Mufamadi to the Central European University funded by George Soros.
26 September 2023: Naledi Pandor meets with Anthony Blinken who refers to her as “my colleague and my friend” [he uses the word friend twice in a two paragraph statement]
27 September 2023: The US House Foreign Relations Committee holds a session on ‘Examining the Current U.S.-South Africa Bilateral Relationship’. The two South Africans who testify are loudly pro-US, Open Society Foundation-funded broadcaster Redi Tlhabi and another purveyor of pro-US narratives Chris Maroleng the head of ‘thinktank’ Good Governance Africa (reportedly a ‘spinoff of the [right-wing] Institute for Race Relations that does not appear to declare its funding sources) [this leads to critical questions from South Africans on social media asking why these two individuals were deemed representatives of the country]
2 October 2023: Mufamadi has another (apparently lengthy) call with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan
7 October 2023: Hamas launches its ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ attack against Israel
2 November 2023: the AGOA Forum goes ahead in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the US delegation led by its trade representative — despite widespread media reporting suggesting that the US would move it elsewhere due to South Africa’s foreign policy stance on Palestine and Ukraine
15 November 2023: The Director General of the State Security Agency resigns after a little more than a year in her post. Reports suggest this was primarily due to clashes with minister in the presidency Khumbubdzo Ntshaveni. [Despite a resolution procedure introduced under Ramaphosa to avoid such outcomes]
29 December 2023: South Africa files its case at the ICJ
23 January 2024: 210 members of the US Congress sign a letter to Anthony Blinken in which they condemn South Africa’s case at the ICJ, refer to it as an enemy of Israel that ‘demonizes the Jewish state’ and “urge you to [denounce South Africa’s stance], offer Israel all appropriate support in opposing the South African application to the ICJ, and…encourage our allies to join us in speaking out against this unfounded attack”
30 January 2024: Ramaphosa warns the ANC of possible foreign interference in South Africa’s elections because of its case at the ICJ [yet in parallel he allows South African intelligence agencies to remain dramatically weakened by his own actions and those of his confidant Khumbudzo Ntshaveni: the saying about ‘actions versus words’ comes to mind]
3 February 2024: The Independent Electoral Commission responds to Ramaphosa and others by saying that “the chances of interference, while we cannot rule them out one hundred percent, we think our system is such that we are not exposed to any risk because there is no transmission of results or voting during the day” [I pointed out at the time that this was dangerously overconfident because vote count aggregation is digital not manual - I included the crash of the IEC’s results system as one of 14 reasons to think the election results may have been manipulated]
6 February 2024: A Bill is tabled in the US House of Representatives accusing South Africa of aligning with ‘malign actors’, anti-Semitism and undermining US nationl security. It proposed a report on such actions and a corresponding review of the bilateral relationship between the two countries. Very strong language in a diplomatic and legislative context.
15 February 2024: One private intelligence analysis firm describes South Africa “quickly running out of friends on Capitol Hill as it cozies up to US rivals”
6 March 2024: The US publishes a short statement about a discussion between Jake Sullivan and Sydney Mufamadi, “reaffirm[ing] the strong partnership between South Africa and the United States”
19 March 2024: Pandor visits Washington, expresses concern about criticism of South Africa by Congress and its attempts to take punitive action, “stressed that Pretoria’s problem is not with the White House” and says “The executive understands [South Africa] far more than Congress”
17 June 2024: The chairperson of the Democratic Alliance states that they will no longer support impeachment of Ramaphosa in order to protect their coalition arrangement
30 June 2024: The first Cabinet of the post-election coalition is announced
2 July 2024: Biden congratulates Ramaphosa on his reelection and the formation of a coalition government and commits to further cooperation in areas of mutual interest
5 July 2024: Blinken calls Naledi Pandor to express his appreciation for her tenure, after she announces that she will not serve in the next Cabinet
8 August 2024: The Mozambican finance minister South Africa extradited, Manuel Chang, is convicted of money laundering in a US court [sending a message about the capacity of the USA to prosecute high-profile Southern African politicians]
29 October 2024: US ambassador Brigety makes a point of meeting with the convicted criminal, gangster, xenophobe, pro-Israel politician Gayton McKenzie who he called a ‘friend’. [Breaking protocol by having a minister coming to visit an ambassador would of course allow discussions that could be monitored by US intelligence agencies but not South African ones]
8 November 2024: Ramaphosa has phonecall with Donald Trump after the announcement of the US election results - reportedly the call was arranged by South African billionaire Johan Rupert
November 2024: The ANC’s Ebrahim Rasool is announced as South Africa’s ambassador designate to the United States, receiving seemingly unlikely praise and uncharacteristically balanced treatment from pro-US and anti-ANC South African commentators
23 November 2024: Khumbudzo Ntshaveni reported to have “plunged [State Security Agency] into fresh turmoil” after indicating her intention to remove all staff over the age of 50. Ntshaveni was reported as identifying particular individuals in person. The supposed justification was budget cuts.
1 December 2024: South Africa takes up the presidency of the G20 from the United States
What’s notable in this timeline, I suggest, is two very different strands. The more public narrative emphasises apparent clashes between South Africa’s foreign policy and the United States. (There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of media headlines and articles that I did not cite here that emphasise this aspect). A closer look at the nature of the engagements and remarks, however, suggests instead a closer relationship and much more similar views at the level of leaders (Ramaphosa and Biden, Pandor and Blinken) and the two states. The fact that the US Congress has not proceeded with its punitive actions against South Africa, the AGOA forum went ahead in Johannesburg and South Africa was assured by the Biden administration that it would retain its AGOA status are all very suggestive.
The sabre rattling against South Africa has come almost entirely from Congress and from a single outburst by Ambassador Reuben Brigety, distracting from the close working relationship that Ramaphosa’s administration actually had with their US counterparts from 2022 onwards. Moreover, this has happened in parallel to Ramphosa and his close allies (such as Mufamadi and Ntshaveni) actively weakening South Africa’s own intelligence capacity. All of which provides important context for my thesis about South Africa’s ICJ application.
Of course, this is all only a collection of public information. It would be much more useful to know what was said in ‘private’ meetings between Ramaphosa and Biden, Mufamadi and Sullivan, Pandor and Blinken.
With Trump’s election, many of the overt and covert relationships developed in the last 3 years could easily be upended. The AGOA Renewal and Improvement Act has not yet been passed by the US Congress even though South Africa had effectively been assured by the Biden administration that it would retain its preferential status.
If you think I have missed anything crucial in this timeline please let me know in the comments and if I agree I will update it.