Mthobeli Jiwulane

The truthfulness of the allegations made by the US ambassador to South Africa that South Africa supplied arms and ammunition to Russia is yet to be proven as both Pretoria and Russia insist they know nothing about the matter.

Ambassador Reuben Bridgety shocked South Africans when he claimed a Russian ship that docked on the in Simon’s Town harbour, in Cape Town last year was loaded with ammunition given to Moscow in aid of its invasion of Ukraine. South African government denied the claim and President Cyril Ramaphosa offered to appoint a commission of inquiry comprising retired judges to investigate the matter.

South African maintains non-aligned position between the West and the East but had a historic ties with Russian emanating from the time the former Soviet Union supported the ANC-led armed struggle against apartheid. The Soviet supplied arms and trained members of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto Wesizwe to fight the white minority regime, which rule through racial discrimination between 1948 and 1994 when the black majority took over power.

Bridgety’s statement solicited massive and angry response from the ANC and its left alliance partners, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of the South African Trade Unions.

The SACP called for Bridgety to be sent back home. “The conduct of Reuben E. Brigety II, the United States ambassador to South Africa, leaves much to be desired. In defence of our democratic national sovereignty and for his hysterically unbecoming behaviour, South Africa must send him packing as a matter of urgency. Brigety’s utterances suggest that he may as well be embedded in rogue intelligence operations involved in spying on our country.

Although the US envoy had since apologised for his utterance, his statement continues to fuel raging debate in the South African politics. Some even expressed disappointment that Bridgety, being an African-American, would make such a claim when African-Americans strongly supported the efforts to dismantle apartheid in South Africa.

All previous US ambassadors to South African avoided making politically sensitive statements including the last Ambassador, Lana Marks, who concentrated on increasing US-South African trade. She promised to elevate the US from the third largest trading partner after China and the European Union to number one.

The enquiry into the arms supply to Russia is yet to be appointed but Ramaphosa intended to get to the bottom of the issue, which some believe would jeopardised South Africa’s neutral stance in foreign relations and international conflicts and would even cause a conflict between Pretoria and Washington. Up to this stage President Ramaphosa and US President Joe Biden maintained friendly relations and the two leaders interacted frequently about various world matters.

But since South Africa embarked a joint military exercise with Russia and China and South Africa’s failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, relations between the two countries appeared to have cooled. Before the Bridgety’s statement accusing South Africa of arming Russia against Ukraine, South Africa was not invited to participate in the G7 summit of rich nations in Japan for the first time.

This was seen as snub by the West to force South Africa to rethink its relationship with Russia. Prior to that South Africa was respected as being a leader in Africa both from an economic and political point of view.

But South Africa insisted on its non-aligned approach including participating in joint military exercises with not only Russia and China but the Western countries as well. Prior to the Russian and Chinese military exercises, Pretoria was involved in similar naval drills with US, UK and France among others.

South African-based expert regarded Bridgety’s statement as a warning or a wakeup call to Pretoria that the US could imposed punitive sanctions against South Africa to force it to side with the US and ditch Russia. South Africa was set to be excluded from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential trade programme that was initiated by US in 2000 to boost and diversify African trade with the US a form of punishment.

Previously some US business people and parliamentarians lobbied for South Africa’s exclusion from AGOA but for a different reason – that the country was a middle income nation and therefore would not benefit from the agreement. This time around it would be part of putting pressure on South Africa to choose between US and Russia.

Sanctions imposed by America could be followed by similar action by the European Union, which often just follow the US orders on such matters even if some of its member countries felt being bullied by the US. France had expressed reservations about the continued involvement of Europe in the war being bullied by the US to get involved and French President Emmanuel Macron called for an end to the conflict during his visit to China.

In South Africa there was a general feeling within the ruling ANC-led alliance that the US must stop bullying South Africa. South African continued to interact with Moscow including recent visit to Russia by the chief of South African army Lawrence Mbatha for bilateral talks and a visit to the Russian military academies.

The South African military, former MK guerrillas who trained in the former Soviet Union and now occupying certain positions in the state and the leftists within the governing alliance play a significant role in influencing and maintaining the antagonistic posture towards the West particularly the US.

President Ramaphosa denies the South Africa’s involvement in arming Russia. The President reiterated that his country’s non-aligned position did not favour Russia and also offered that Pretoria was prepared to mediated between Russia and Ukraine to end the ongoing war between the two countries. But it remained to be seen whether Kyiv or Washington would accept the South Africa’s media in the light of the Bridgety’s claim that it supplied arms to Russia.

However, despite accusation, Washington has more confidence in South African than China, whose offer of mediation in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict was rejected by the US. It’s not the first time South Africa offered to mediate, because after the outbreak of the war, Ramaphosa spoke directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to whom he offered South Africa’s mediation services.

Political analyst, Dr Jan Venter from North West University in South African does not believe America would punish South Africa but this was a mere pressure on it to change its stance.
President Joe Biden, who as then Senator, pressured the previous US administrations to stop supporting the white regime in South Africa but help fight the black oppression, has a soft spot for South Africa especially with Ramaphosa at the helm.