Key topics
- Ramaphosa’s ICJ stance strains US ties but gains global support.
- Brenthurst Foundation accused of double standards on Palestine, Ukraine.
- Trump’s executive order pressures SA over land, Israel policies.
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By Hassen Lorgat
Your article March 5, 2025, “Ramaphosa’s risky foreign policy: Backing ICJ warrants, straining US ties,” by Ray Hartley* and Greg Mills* from the Brenthurst Foundation is a lame attack on the president of the country for standing up to bullies. What piqued the two writers was the actions of the Hague Group and the other members: Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, and Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla of Progressive International who chair the Hague Group. The Group supports the ICJ case that South Africa initiated.
They desire that South Africa keep its head down but, instead of that, “Ramaphosa is leading the charge on an issue Washington has already singled out South Africa over.” South Africa was fingered for its land policies, which are said to be anti white, and for its leadership in the ICJ case against Israel. It seems that deep down what troubles them, is what they wrote elsewhere: the “pivot away from the West” which they warn “is no longer entirely cost free, a price that will be paid by all South Africans.” They conclude that Ramphosa is playing “a game of chicken mounted on a moped against a freight train – which they believe he and the country will lose.”
These supposed liberals do not like the steadfast position that placed Israel in the dock of the ICJ on a charge of genocide. They are obviously opposed that South Africa continues to back the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue the war criminals Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
By repeating their support for the ICJ case to proceed, alongside other presidents, did not go down well for these commentators. Mills and Hartley commented that Ramaphosa and his fellow presidents insisted that Trump’s plans for Gaza constitute “ethnic cleansing” which “strikes at the very foundation of international law”. In addition, they believe Ramaphosa’s statement that he is open to negotiation or deal on all issues -trade issues, diplomatic and or political – was insincere.
South Africa can not do right by them. The country is either unprincipled in not arresting al Bashir from Sudan or also generally inconsistent. But in their article there was a deafening silence about Ukraine. Why? Is it because Trump has shifted the USA’s allegiances?
Ukraine
The Brenthurst Foundation’s silence on Ukraine when talking about Trump shows that they lack backbone and are afraid to speak truth to power. During 2022, after initial ducking and diving about who funded the DA leader John Steenhuisen’s six-day “fact-finding mission”(April- May 2022) to Ukraine, they finally came clean. The Daily Maverick confirmed that the Brenthurst Foundation paid for the trip. They further quote the DA leader stating that: “Ukraine has now become the new frontier of freedom in the world, in the battle against tyranny and imperialism.”
Later in a commentary entitled “Message to the African Peace Mission: Ukraine Shares a History with Africa on the Struggle for Liberation”, Mills and Oleksandr Merezhko (Ukraine MP) wrote in a language they have never or will ever use when discussing Palestine thus: “…Ukraine is fighting a war of liberation against a colonial power. When the African delegation thinks of how peace can be achieved, it should think of how their countries achieved independence despite the habit of imperialists to determine the future of others. Africans would not have accepted anything less than self-determination and to be left to make their own choices.
Ukraine only asks for the same.”
It would appear that their love for freedom against imperialism is not principled and equal for all, and thus it is not worth the paper it is written in. It makes Ramaphosa appear even more consistent than the Brenthurst Foundation.
It is clear that these ideologues have no South African bones in their bodies. This is evidenced by their responses to Trump’s executive orders.
Trump’s Executive Order signed on 7 February needs revisiting for this discussion. About the Executive Order, Mills and Hartley believe South Africa should have taken the humble bow and kiss the ring of the emperor. (They want to appease the man who wants Canada, Greenland and others to be mild and meek). In South Africa’s case, and simply put: drop Palestine and stop the transformation of South Africa from white supremacy. In addition, they argue that Trump’s executive order has merit on the land issue as well. Accordingly the liberals have mobilised against the arguments of radicals like EFF’s Julius Malema and Ngcukaitobi here and here.
A closer look at the executive order, reveals Trump’s political intentions which are plain to see:
… South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.
The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States that, as long as South Africa continues these unjust and immoral practices that harm our Nation:
(a) the United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa; and
(b) the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees……
The way this order was crafted leaves no room for doubt nor compromise. It ties Palestine and the ICJ case to pissing off Washington about this supposedly minority group, the Afrikaners. As an autonomous nation, South Africa has the right to make laws and decisions as it sees fit.
There can be no deal on Palestine other than pursuing the case. The case that began with South Africa, today boasts the support of – more recently – the African Union as a party to the case. Earlier many other countries joined the case, including Spain; Nicaragua; Colombia; Libya; Mexico; Palestine; Türkiye; Chile; the Maldives; Bolivia; Ireland; and Cuba.
This is no longer South Africa’s case. All countries listed above want justice for the over 46 000 Palestians who were killed, most of those women and children. But South Africa continues to play a leading role and has presented the evidence to support their case. That is over 750 pages of text, supported by exhibits and annexes of over 4 000 pages.
Those who seek a surrender of South Africa on the question of Palestine are wrong. What these ideological free-marketeers from the Brenthurst Foundation want is for South Africa to be a lackey, on the lowest rungs of the transition belt of the empire: just good enough to sell raw materials and buy finished products. South Africa must know its place, they conclude. They also take issue with Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi for saying that the expropriation bill must be a tool for redress and reconstruction but that in its present form is moderate. Ngcukaitobi adds, and we all know, that expropriation laws exist all over the world.
Expropriation under racist rule – apartheid
All of us who grew up under racist rule, do not need convincing that this is not a real debate but a manufactured conflict aimed at keeping white supremacy alive and in power. Most – if not all – countries have laws on expropriation. Even under apartheid. If you ignore the land grabbing and theft from colonialism and apartheid, the whites only parliament passed the Expropriation Act of 1975. The regime already had white supremacist laws that confirmed their rule such as the Natives Land Act of 1913 and the Group Areas Act of 1950, and others that dispossessed and later restricted land ownership and setting out residential areas by race.
So, this Expropriation Act was not as innocent as you may think given that it had to serve apartheid. It was formally designed to provide the government with a legal framework to expropriate land and property for public purposes. This public purpose justification was a mere veneer of lawfulness. The true reality was the theft of land and disruption of community life. Whilst the act included a compensation clause, it was racist in its conception and execution – and you do not need me to tell you that black (then referred to as non-whites landowners) were not given the same market value that whites received, generally speaking.
While the Act itself framed expropriation as a tool for public interest, such as infrastructure development or public works, it was also used as a mechanism to enforce apartheid policies, particularly those related to racial segregation and land dispossession. Apartheid South Africa pioneered this stratagem where evictions and force removals of black spots was a daily occurrence. Today Israel’s zionist laws disenfranchise Palestinians by taking their land away for security reasons or for forests and parks. We see it and we call it out.
This pressure by Trump and his local supporters is meant to stop transformation, particularly of land. This is quoted by the authors who point out that the Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development, Mzwanele Nyhontso, has given notice given this week that the government intends to pass legislation named “Equitable Access to Land Bill” soon. Instead of seeing it as a necessary act after colonialism and apartheid, Hartley and Mills see it as an addition to “its armoury of land legislation.”
Ultimately, Mills and Hartley want us to support the sole imperial power, the US, simply because they are imperialist – whether it was Biden, Obama or Trump. They propose a life to be lived without human dignity, autonomy and agency. They even ask for support for this illiberal administration in the White House. What they are supporting today is denuded of principles and values such as international human rights law, equality of persons and nations, solidarity or justice and so on. They are simply supporting domkrag. What type of liberals are you?
Your double standards are showing whilst South Africa generally has striven – with some minor slip ups – to be heads and shoulders ahead of them. We have to bite the bullet for now and the next few years. But this is not a passive exercise. We will continue to organise as our country must continue to build alliances and strengthen multilateralism. What is clear is that we cannot give up our autonomy as a nation. There is no other option. Kwame Nkrumah probably had it right when he said: “we prefer freedom with danger to servitude in tranquility.”
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