Mthobeli Jiwulane

Under President Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa has been playing a significant role as a leader on behalf of African on various continental initiatives including resistance to Western dominance and Israel machination.

But South Africa’s role was being undermined by some of Ramaphosa’s fellow African leaders who harboured secret agendas to cooperate with the West, because it still greases their hands.

Pretoria had been the most vocal in condemning Israeli’s bombings in Gaza where it targeted hospitals and schools and killed civilians including women and children. The country shut off its diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv in protests at the Israel actions against the Palestinians.

It is under intense internal pressure from the ruling African National Congress’ political alliance partners and civil society to expel the Israeli Ambassador to South Africa, Eliav Belotsercovsky. It’s a matter of time before the diplomat is sent home.

The ANC even vowed to back a parliamentary motion sponsored by the Leninist-Marxist opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, calling for Belotsercovsky, to be sent packing. The EFF, the third largest party in South Africa, was formed in 2013 by the radical Julius Malema, a former president of the ANC Youth League after he was expelled from the governing party on charges of misconduct.

He took with him several league members such as Floyd Shivambu and Magdalene Moonsamy to the new party, which built itself as a vanguard of the poor, somehow replacing the neo-liberal ANC in the position.

Although Malema was kicked out of the ANC, he remained influential in the governing party from outside. Often, he attempted to push it to adopt radical policies on land reform and anti-imperialism. So far, he failed in the former but succeeded in the latter.

Malema believes the ANC’s sympathy towards Russia did not go far enough. If the EFF got into power, he states, the party would not only give moral support but would supply Russia with arms to fight against Ukraine and Western imperialism or neo-colonialism.

A pan-Africanist and a rubble-rouser, who recently claimed to like “causing trouble”, Malema had been campaigning lately for Israel to be punished for “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” in Palestine.

Although the ANC had never backed any EFF parliamentary motions in the past, but this time around, the two parties expressed willing to sing from the same hymn book to ensure Israel is isolated.

President Ramaphosa and his vocal Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Dr Naledi Pandor, had been interacting with the Palestine solidarity movement since the Gaza conflict began early last month. South Africa believes the Israeli retaliation against the Hamas attack on 7 October had gone too far.  The bombings of residential dwellings, hospitals, schools where people sheltered and ambulances transporting victims to hospitals were disproportionate to the Hamas strike. This was the straw that broke the camel’s neck.

Pandor called it “genocide” and “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people by Israel.

She questioned the ICC’s inaction against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the court was quick to charge Russia’s Vladimir Putin over alleged excesses in the current Ukraine war. Now South Africa is pursuing the Palestinian situation in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

On Friday 17 November 2023, South Africa wrote to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC asking the court to charge Netanyahu in terms of Article 14 of the Rome Statute for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza. The referral was delivered in person by South Africa’s ambassador in the Hague, Vusi Madonsela to office of the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Khan acknowledged receipt of the referral and said that the Rome Statute crimes committed since 07 October 2023 form part of his office investigation and that the actions of both sides including Hamas, would be probed.

It is not the first time that Israel was referred to the ICC for its attacks against Palestine. In 2018 the Palestinian Authority approached the Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, after Israel bombed Gaza.  The investigation had been underway since 2021 with no outcome amidst fierce opposition to the probe by Israel and the United States, that are both not signatories to the Rome Statute.

The fact that a full five years had passed since the first referral, had left some to doubt that the new probe would ever bear fruits.  The Hague-based court was perceived to be biased in favour of the West and its allies like Israel.

The likely Israel prosecution, if it happened at all, could see the US caught between a rock and a hard place because it was forward in backing the prosecution of Russian President Vladimir Putin by the ICC. Putin was accused following alleged kidnapping of Ukrainian children in Moscow’s current war with Kyiv.

If America opposed Netanyahu’s prosecution that would expose Washington’s hypocrisy and reinforce accusations that it was abusing the ICC to fulfil its political agenda despite not being a signatory to the Rome Statute.

The ICC has jurisdiction over non-members if a complaint was received from a legitimate source. But if, for some unlikely reason that Netanyahu is not prosecuted based on Israeli’s non-membership of the ICC, that would mean Putin must also be let off the hook as Russia is also not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

The ICC had been criticised by countries of the global South especially Africa for targeting only developing and poor countries particular African leaders for prosecution, ignoring the Western nations, that had numerous instances of war crimes they committed in other countries, they should account for.

The ICC took no action against former US president George Bush and then British Prime Minister Tony Blair over atrocities committed by the US and Britain in the Iraqi war in the early 90s. Baghdad was invaded by NATO forces in the name of searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that were never found. Then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was killed and there were numerous civilian casualties. The country was left in ruins while a pro-Western leader was installed.

UK and US leaders were not prosecuted by the ICC for their actions and this despite Blair’s veiled confession about the wrongfulness of their decision and apologised publicly for it.

South Africa is demanding that Netanyahu should be charged for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. South Africa had been joined in the referral by Bangladesh, Bolivia, Venezuela, Comoros and Djibouti that, though not powerful states, were all signatories to the Rome Statute. “South Africa remains committed to ending impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,” Pandor said in a statement. Pandor asked the ICC to “prioritise the situation in Palestine in order to deliver justice to the victims of these grave crimes”.

According to a research paper by Jordan J. Paust, in general, the ICC could exercise jurisdiction if a “situation” or case is referred to the ICC prosecutor by a state party to the treaty or by the U.N. Security Council. Also, the investigation could be initiated by the ICC prosecutor proprio motu.

With the ongoing war in Gaza and a death-toll due to Israel attacks on civilians at around 13 000 at the time of going to print, the matter was billed as an urgent application.

Besides its solidarity with the Palestinian cause, South Africa also had an axe to grind with Israel. Tel Aviv supported the white apartheid National Party regime in South Africa. The support including military training of the apartheid security forces and those of the former Bantustans, also known as homelands, to stop the ANC-led liberation efforts.

The Bantustans were Pretoria-created ethnic-based poverty-stricken enclaves reserved for the disenfranchised black majority to exercise their statehood and sovereignty.  The homelands and their leaders being puppets of and funded by Pretoria. But were not recognised by the international community.

However, with Pretoria sponsorship and political prop up, the “states” were very productive in terms of infrastructure development and agriculture compared to the current ANC-led democratic government, which is notorious for endemic state corruption and widespread misgovernance.

South Africa, on the one hand, has a huge Jewish community most of whom held dual citizenships and were still emotionally attached to Israel. Many of them, especially the Zionist Jews were prepared to defend Tel Aviv at every turn as they do internationally.

On other hand, the country has is large group of progressive Jews many of whom participated in the ANC-led struggle against apartheid. Known struggle Jews included the late former South African Communist Party chief and former Housing Minister, Joe Slovo and his late wife Ruth First, an activist in her own right, the former ANC national executive committee member and former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, and a host of others. Many were arrested with Nelson Mandela in the 1960s Rivonia treason trial.

The progressive Jews, some in the academia, were opposed to Israel oppression of Palestine and sympathised with Palestine.

But Israel has some sympathisers in South Africa. Among them is country’s former Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, former mayor of the rich City of Johannesburg mayor, Mpho Phalatse and the Patriotic Alliance party.

While Mogoeng and Phalatse had not pronounced on the current conflict in the Middle East, the Patriotic Alliance, a party with a coloured community voter constituency, shocked many when it openly voiced its support for the Israeli action in Gaza. But the majority of South African Christians especially from the mainstream churches were opposed to Israel oppression in Gaza and during the apartheid era.

Recently, South Africa was the only country that opposed the Israel’s observer status at the African Union Assembly. The country moved a motion at the AU summit calling for the Israel observer status nullified by the pan-African multilateral body. Interestingly out of 54 countries that constituted the AU Assembly, only four supported the South African-sponsored motion.

Minister Pandor expressed outrage at the hypocrisy of some African leaders who seemed to favour Israel to keep its observer status in the AU. Pandor, a leftist with strong socialist views, said she would continue to oppose Israel as long as she was the foreign Minister in South Africa.

But it turned out that they were being secretly funded by Israel in various ways and the leaders did not want to bite the hand that fed them.  Besides, some countries feared that if they showed hostility towards the Tel Aviv, that would jeopardise their relationship with its main ally, the US.

Pandor, as a key-note speaker during a seminar organised by the Leninist-Marxist National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) made it clear that Israel is one of the countries that caused divisions among African states by using money to buy favours from some leaders.

Being a former liberation movement itself, the ruling ANC in South Africa support the struggle of Palestinian and Western Sahara people. Pretoria, although it has diplomatic relations with both Israel and Morocco, it also simultaneously offered Palestine and Western Sahara’s Polisario Front, diplomatic statuses in the country as well.

Although the African leaders often professed the idea of African unity and finding African solution to Africa’s problems they differed markedly with regards to their approach to international relations and geopolitics. The West still held sway among the continent’s old guard, but the new generation of leaders, including opposition leader Julius Malema in South Africa, several coup leaders in West Africa and others like William Ruto of Kenya, and the late John Magufuli of Tanzania. These leaders want Africa to divorce itself from the Western influence but to carve their own African paths – both political and economically.

The leaders who were known for flip-flopping towards the West included Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, who recently accepted asylum-seekers that were sold to Rwanda by Britain. But a British court has since nullified the deal as illegal.

Other flip floppers were Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo who asked France to help West Africa to fight against rebellion and coup leaders and Ramaphosa of South Africa and a few others.

Ramaphosa was known for following the direction of the wind, and just follow the flow. Recently he told French President Emmanuel Macron that “Africa is not a “burger” and that “Africa’s mineral resources belong to Africa and must remain in Africa”.

But some dismissed his statements as a red herring because he was going with the flow after several successful coups in West Africa that saw anti-France military juntas taking over.

A former trade unionist who became a businessman and a capitalist, he rose to wealthy status via ANC’s black economic empowerment policy.  Ramaphosa favours neoliberal policies including privatisation and is seen as friend of the white big business. However, Ramaphosa is seen as a lesser evil because he democratically ousted the corrupt Jacob Zuma administration in 2018.

But Ramaphosa’s inability to fight graft himself despite his many promises to do so has tarnished his reputation even to the business community that propped him into power in the 2019 general election.

Previous African opponents of the Western dominance in Africa included Nelson Mandela and his successor Thabo Mbeki, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and pioneers like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and several others. Although Mandela and Mbeki pursued the neo-liberal economic blue-print known as Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, they were avowed opponents of the Western dominance of Africa.

Mbeki, a pan-Africanist who espoused the African Renaissance principle which is about Africa rising, was the brains behind Africa’s own economic independence initiatives which had crystallised into the recently established African Continental Free Trade Area.

Many contemporary African leaders had been propped into power through Western support such as funding of their election campaigns and military backing to fight rebels. Africa will remain divided over Israel and the West in general and those countries sure know that greediness is their weakness.

But South Africa, from Mandela, Mbeki, Zuma and Ramaphosa had been going other way. Under Zuma in particular the country moved closer to Russia and China. Nevertheless, being a member of BRICS, South Africa is slowly weaning itself from the Western influence including taking a clear stance against Israel and its support for Palestine.

Pretoria recently stood up to the US after it tried to bully it and other countries to vote against the Russian invasion in Ukraine and support Ukraine. South Africa abstained from the United Nations vote last year.

It is openly pro-Palestine and its approach was also influenced by the left-leaning civil society and the trade union movement. South Africa’s left movement is comprised of the ANC political allies such as the South African Communist Party and Congress of South Africa Trade Union, the opposition EFF and the Federation of South Africa Trade Unions (SAFTU). SAFTU’s itself has numerous socialist affiliates such as NUMSA union and General Industries Workers Union of South Africa and Food and Allied Workers Union.

There were also smaller leftist parties that remain inactive and less vocal and influential in the country’s politics such as Pan Africanist Congress of Zania and Azanian People’s Organisation.

But one thing is for sure, whether fellow Africa states supported South Africa’s quest to isolate Israel or not, Pretoria is not about to give up on its solidarity for Palestine or any other oppressed people of the world. The party, which was supported by the former Soviet Union with military training and arms to fight apartheid and colonialism, managed to achieve its goal of freedom partly through international solidarity.

The African states would always be divided in their approach to international relations and crucial geopolitical issues due to the fact that many African leaders were not only corrupt but greedy and power-hungry. Their double agenda approach has kept Africa poor and depended on external interventions which come with hidden agendas to keep Africa as pawn in an imperialist or neo-colonial game.