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South Africa needs to box clever in its David versus Goliath duel with Trump

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  Recent actions by US President Donald Trump’s administration are severely straining relations with South Africa’s new government led by President Cyril Ramaphosa. And relations between the two governments are likely to worsen. The first blow was last month’s threat by Trump’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley that countries unwilling to tow the US line would be punished. According to a list of the 2017 General Assembly vote counts released in March, South Africa was one of the 10 least supportive countries. It voted with the US only 18% of the time. More recently, Ramaphosa’s expressed disappointment at Trump’s withdrawal from Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is likely to raise the US president’s ire, especially as South Africa presses ahead with plans to expand trade with Iran. And relations between the two countries could sour further following South Africa’s decision to recall its ambassador to Israel in protest against the killing by the Israeli army of over 50 Palestinians protesting against the relocation of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The relocation came after Trump recognised the disputed holy city Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. South Africa has a lot to lose. As the only liberal democracy on the State Department’s list of ten UN members most critical of US policies, it is also the only one that benefits substantially from extensive trade and assistance agreements with the US. Trump’s announcement that South Africa wouldn’t be given exemption from his recent unilateral hikes in tariffs on US imports of steel and aluminium has not yet been linked to its UN voting record. But commentators have raised this possibility. Losing out on the exemption could cost South Africa 7,500 jobs. The impact on the country’s economy could be far worse if Trump moves against South African manufactured products that currently enjoy special access to US markets under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). In my view this threat may be exaggerated. And Trump’s targeting of South Africa would be rightly criticised as an attempt to undermine Ramaphosa’s efforts to reform and revitalise his nation’s troubled democracy and economy. Given the size of the US economy relative to South Africa’s, many will view this as another case of David versus Goliath, with most rooting for David. South Africa’s challenge will be to exploit those conditions and facts that might disarm its more powerful adversary. Several are already evident. Disarming Trump First, the timing of the Trump administration’s actions are happening just as Ramaphosa’s commitment to redress corruption and misrule under his predecessor Jacob Zuma is receiving international recognition and praise. In addition, Ramaphosa is embellishing South Africa’s image in a year-long domestic and international campaign celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the iconic Nelson Mandela. He is pledging fresh and determined efforts to uphold the Mandela legacy. In this spirit, Ramaphosa lobbied and received unanimous African support for South Africa’s bid for another two-year term on the UN Security Council. This is almost certain to be affirmed next month by the UN General Assembly in a vote that’s bound to raise South Africa’s standing internationally. The following month former US president Barack Obama comes to Johannesburg to deliver the annual Mandela lecture. The world will once again be reminded of Mandela’s values and ideals, as well as the contrasts between Trump’s character and that of his predecessor. US President Donald Trump. EPA-EFE/Michael Reynolds Second, it’s worth revisiting the State Department’s UN voting scorecard. The votes show that the mood of the General Assembly has become much more hostile since Trump became president. On the 92 issues that required UN General Assembly votes last year, the US was backed in only 31% of its resolutions – the lowest level of support since 2008. This reflects the fact that Trump’s immediate predecessors tended to be pragmatic. Although for decades majorities in the General Assembly disagreed with the US on issues such as Palestinian rights, and the merits of US military adventures, there was nevertheless cooperation in other areas. But Trump has long been dismissive of the UN and multi-lateralism in general as of little value or importance to the US. Had South Africa voted with the US a few more times it would have joined the league of African states such as Kenya (20%), Ethiopia (21%) and Nigeria (22%). China (22%), Brazil (23%), and India (25%) aren’t much higher. Third, the US claim that it was refusing to exempt South African from the steel and aluminium tariff hikes for “national security” reasons was laughable and might not survive World Trade Organisation scrutiny. South Africa supplies less than 2% of these commodities to the US. Yet the US saw fit to exempt nearly 60% of steel exports from the US’s European and other allies. Fears that Trump may try to abrogate other South Africa preferences that allow imports of manufactured products, notably BMW Series 3 and Mercedes C Class automobiles, with a lot more jobs at stake, are understandable. South Africa should lobby a receptive US Congress to prevent this. Bi-partisan majorities recently renewed duty-free access until 2025, after protracted and successful negotiations with South Africa. South Africa can also draw on Congressional goodwill that so far has resisted Trump’s attempts to cut development assistance to Africa, including SA. And finally, the business community has responded positively to Ramaphosa’s emissaries seeking support for his global campaign to raise USD$100 billion of investments for the country. Standing up to a bully There are many entrenched networks of cooperation between South Africa and the US among sister cities, provinces and states, civic organisations, educational and scientific exchanges, and various cultural and historical ties. They can all help to shield South Africa from Trump’s bullying. Other countries, uncertain about how to respond to Trump, may not have the same means that South Africa has to connect directly and extensively with the American people. But, if Pretoria is willing to stand up to Trump, it might encourage African and other smaller countries to

Blog, Essays, Monishots

For Jacob Zuma, it is a long overdue farewell.

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Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war ~ Donald Trump Any informed political observer should know that it was never going to end well for the most colourful and controversial South African President since the end of apartheid in 1994.  Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma can rightly be described as the proverbial cat with nine lives. Born into poverty in the KwaZulu-Natal region of the country, his father was a policeman while his mother was a domestic worker, the boy who had little formal education was to rise to the glorious pinnacle of South Africa’s intricate politics after several struggles. But of course like they say, every story that has a beginning will surely have an end. Trouble had been brewing for quite a long time with the once exiled leader waltzing through most of the obstacles like he would do in his favourite pastime of dancing. Having been dogged by several controversies including trials for rape and bribery all through his political life, Jacob Zuma must have thought all the strife had ended when he was sworn in as South Africa’s President in May 2009. Indeed so it seemed, he was allowed to settle in and had little problems in the early years of his administration. However, an indication of where his presidency was headed turned up in March 2012 when the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the Democratic Alliance (an opposition party) could challenge a previous court ruling that let him off some corruption charges. Another corruption scandal erupted in March 2014 when the Ombudsman stated that part of the $15 million refurbishments at Zuma’s luxurious residence was unlawful and ordered him to repay same. Buoyed by the likelihood of an electoral victory in the upcoming presidential polls, a stubborn Zuma was to ignore this order which ultimately proved to be his Achilles heel. If anyone thought that Zuma’s travails would cease when the ANC won a majority of votes in the May 2014 polls to ensure he will have another five-year tenure as South Africa’s Numero Uno the person had another think coming. That notion once again proved to be illusory two years later as the country’s highest court ruled that Zuma had trampled on the constitution by refusing to reimburse part of the tax-payers funds used to renovate his private home. He was subsequently ordered him to refund some of the money. The recalcitrant leader apologised in a national broadcast over the issue which he admitted had “caused a lot of frustration and confusion” and promised to abide by the ruling but still denied any wrongdoing. That public address appeared to trigger a roller coaster of woes for Zuma because less than a month on, another court ruled that prosecutors acted “irrationally” by dropping 18 charges of over 700 fraudulent payments brought against him in 2009. The decision was to be reviewed thus opening an avenue for the charges to be reinstated. That chapter was supposed to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. But Zuma clung on. As his party lost further ground when the opposition took key cities in the municipal elections of 2016, some cabinet ministers called for his resignation in a rowdy meeting that was reportedly close to fisticuffs. Zuma then pulled the same old wool over their eyes by blaming the west for his travails. How often have we seen African leaders pull off that obsolete stunt? In the end attempts to remove him as president failed. The onslaught continued as the opposition parties mainly the Democratic Alliance and the fierce Julius Malema who leads the Economic Freedom Fighters continued to call on Zuma to step down. Indeed Zuma faced about three no-confidence votes in 2016 but still came through all. And in a calmer 2017 he narrowly escaped once more when another no-confidence vote was defeated by 198 to 177 votes in a secret vote that held in parliament. However, calls for his resignation from his party continued unabated and by October 2017 the country’s apex court upheld an April 2016 High Court ruling to reinstate corruption charges against Zuma. It was coming thick and fast, and in the run-up to December 2017 date to elect a new party president Ivor Chipkin, an Associate Professor at the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and a leading public affairs analyst penned an op-ed for the New York Times in which he detailed the president’s corrupt romance with the notorious Gupta family and described his 9 year era as “a decade of leadership that has seen Africa’s oldest liberation movement become a caricature of corruption and factionalism”. It now appears that the election was the beginning of the end for Zuma as an equally radiant Cyril Ramaphosa defeated Dlamini-Zuma, the president’s ex-wife and preferred candidate, to become the ANC leader. Constitutionally, Zuma’s tenure should run till 2019, but given the crisis within the ruling party and of course Ramaphosa’s overt political ambition there was little hope of dousing the increasing tension. An unsavoury twilight loomed for the man who had become known as the “Teflon President”. Now the die is cast after the parliament postponed the state of the nation address, the ANC held a marathon meeting for about 13 hours and unanimously agreed that President Jacob Zuma should throw in the towel. A letter to this effect was personally delivered to him on February 13, 2017, by the party’s secretary general Ace Magashule who also held a press conference to announce same. Going by the tradition of African leaders as recently exemplified by the ‘Mugabe palace coup’ many expect that Zuma will cling on to his office given that his fifth wife had previously said that “it’s about to get ugly”, an indication that her husband is going nowhere. However, the shining examples of Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan and Ghana’s John Mahama must be nurtured to endure. A leader should accept defeat in good faith, be it external or internal. It, therefore, behooves prominent

Blog, Essays

The South African police must stop killing Nigerians.

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“We have reported similar killings to the South African Government and Nigeria High Commission in South Africa and nothing was done to bring the culprits to book. “We want the Nigerian Government to intervene to stop this brutality against innocent Nigerians and stop killing Nigerians out of hatred, racism or xenophobia,’’ ~ Kanayo Onwumelu, Chairman, Western Cape chapter of the union, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) South African Policemen As a crisis-ridden September came to an end with calm restored after the IPOB/Military clashes, I found time to do a piece on an issue that has been a fixture in the news. It is a source of concern especially for me given the number of my friends and relatives resident in South Africa. On the 17th of August 2017, I read that a Nigerian was brutally killed by the South African police. The victim, Mr. Uchenna Emmanuel Eloh was reportedly strolling towards a bus park near his home when he was accosted by the police for an on-the-spot search. A usual approach when they suspect an individual might be in possession of an illegal substance. The often routine task turned awry when the policemen assumed that he swallowed the substance and held him by the neck in a bid to stop him. It wasn’t long before he started foaming in the mouth and eventually died from asphyxiation. Two weeks later the media reported that the Nigeria Union in South Africa confirmed the killing of another of its member by the police. Mr. Kingsley Ikeri, a 27-year-old businessman from Imo state was said to have been killed by the police in Kwazulu Natal Province on the 30th of August. While these stories were still being hotly debated we were shocked by yet another incident. On the 7th of September Vanguard reported that Mr. Clement Ofoma, 35, was said to have been tortured to death after about 10 policemen arrested him for allegedly dealing in drugs. And just a few days ago Ibrahim Badmus was reportedly slain by a police officer. Again and again and again we are assailed with series of similar tragic news and what do we get? Another outrage, another round of condemnation from both governments but the sad reality is that Nigerian families continue losing loved ones with scant chances of ever getting justice. Other victims of this deplorable onslaught against Nigerians include Gideon Ogalaonye, Monday Okorie, Adeniyi Olumoko and Christian Onwukaike, among many others. These stories are depressing, to say the least, and even more so given that there are no indications of these killings abating anytime soon. I say this because I am aware that the South African police is corrupt, so the perpetrators can easily bribe away these murders under the carpet. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa recently revealed that 116 Nigerians have been killed in South Africa via extrajudicial means in the last two years. This figure roughly works out to one per week. Juxtapose the aforementioned facts with the recurrent xenophobic attacks (the last of which occurred in 2015) and it may be right to say that Nigerians are endangered species in South Africa. It is now an emergency and every responsible government must rise to the task of securing its citizens wherever they reside. To examine this worrisome trend and proffer solutions it is essential to present a synopsis of some of the numerous causes (direct and indirect) of the extrajudicial killing of immigrants by state actors with particular reference to South Africa. Whereas it is universally acknowledged that modern states need the police and in some cases, the use of force to provide security, there is a disturbing aberration between the proportionality and necessity of such use in many African nations. It is, therefore, no surprise that excessive use of force was a major factor identified by a study prepared for the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings in Africa. This is particularly so in South Africa where the police force is a fusion of several police organizations much of which had a notorious reputation for brutality, especially during the apartheid era. A 2002 report by Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development (Afronet) revealed that a total of 2174 people died in the hands of the police between 1997 and 2000. About 95% of this figure resulted from police action. Sadly there is little the Nigerian government can do about this particular issue. Even though international criminal and humanitarian law take a more stringent view of command responsibility and excessive use of force, the brotherly diplomacy between two African nations will have to be exhausted before Nigeria will consider going further. What we can do, however, is to provide regular counseling for our citizens over there on informal social control and cooperation with the police. The Nigerian embassy in Pretoria can easily arrange this. South Africa also had the unenviable record of 6 cities among the 10 most dangerous cities in a recent report by worldatlas.com. Furthermore, the ubiquitous proliferation of firearms contributes in no small measure to the high rate of attacks against law enforcement agents. Whereas existing laws for gun ownership require the applicant to be a South African citizen or a permanent resident, the increased use of illegal short guns for violent crimes lays bare the porosity of the country’s gun laws. A 2015 report by businesstech showed that South Africa had the second highest rate of gun-related deaths in the world. It is therefore not surprising that public opinion seems to endorse brutality by the police and even suggest further arming when the reverse should be the case. Nigerians should be properly educated on these laws to avoid illegal gun ownership which often makes them easy targets for the police. Again, dissemination of such information should be a simple matter. Bulk messages and regular reminders to citizens on the embassy database will go a long way in informing them properly. The South African police

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Buhari assures stakeholders of rail, road projects for the South East.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has reassured stakeholders from the South East of his administration’s commitment to providing more roads and coastal rail projects, which are of critical importance to the economy in the region. This was disclosed during a meeting with leaders from the region led by the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, the President declared that the 2nd Niger Bridge, the East-West Road, and the Coastal rail project, are receiving maximum attention from his administration. He said: “I know the Chinese are very competent in handling such projects and we will ensure that we get the money for the projects to take off. “I thank you for articulating your demands and I want to assure that we are doing our best for the country. If we can stop people from stealing, then there will be more resources to put into projects that will create employment for Nigerians”. President Buhari also debunked allegations of under-representation of in his government, he explained: “ I gave south-east four substantive ministers in the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Investment, Science and Technology and Labour. “Seven states in the North got Ministers of State and of the two Ministries headed by your sons, I cannot take any decision on foreign policy and investments without their input,’’ he said. The President also promised to visit states in the zone soon. “I want to assure you that I came into government with a clear conscience and I will also leave with a clear conscience,’’ he said. The stakeholders which comprised of governors and ministers from the region, the President of Ohaneze, Chief Nnia Nwodo and representatives from the National Assembly had presented the demands of the zone to the President. Speaking on the need for an improved federal presence in the zone Chief Nnia Nwodo mentioned the issue of state creation, restructuring, federal projects in the South East namely Enugu-Onitsha road, Enugu-Port Harcourt road and Aba-Ikot-Ekpene road, among others. Nwodo also harped on urgent presidential interventions on the Enugu Airport, reticulation of the gas-pipelines in the South East and the standard gauge plan for railway construction. Commending the President’s remarkable achievements on security and the fight against corruption, He declared: “we are ready to work with you. We are determined to work with you. We know you are a decisive leader and we know God will continue to give you the wisdom to govern Nigeria.’’ Also speaking, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State who is the Chairman of the South East Governors Forum said they were satisfied with the fruitful discussions on important issues affecting the region. “You have no hatred for any state. You have treated all states with equality. What one state gets in the north, the other gets in the south,’’ the governor said, referring to budget support facility and stabilisation fund released to states and local governments since the inception of the administration. Source: NAN

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