‘Don’t dictate to us, Uncle Sam’

International relations minister says US shouldn’t tell SA what to do on geopolitics

South Africa is forging ahead with its genocide case against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICJ) despite reports that the US is being lobbied to pressure the country into dropping its case.

Reports have emerged that Israeli diplomats have been instructed to lobby members of the US Congress to use methods, including possibly curtailing trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) to pressure South Africa to drop its case.

But President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ronald Lamola, the minister of international relations & co-operation, have made it clear that the country will continue to pursue the case at the ICJ.

Ramaphosa told journalists in Pretoria on Friday that South Africa has not been approached by any country to drop the case. He said that the intention is to present evidence of genocide before the ICJ.

“We are standing firm ... we have not seen any reason why we should halt, stop and do away with our case, and we have not been asked to do so,” Ramaphosa said.

He added that should South Africa be approached, it was willing to “hear the rationale”.

“Preparations are under way to present what they call the memorial, a huge tome of hundreds and hundreds of pages,” the president said.

“We continue arguing that the genocide must stop and there must be a ceasefire, and similarly there must be a return of the hostages.”

The Sunday Times has established that the government is in possession of information that indicates intense lobbying by Israel in the US.

Lamola, who is in the US to strengthen relations, told the congressional black caucus that the country should respect South Africa’s sovereignty when it comes to geopolitics.

“We appreciate the decades and long support for Africa’s priorities, including through Pepfar [President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief] and Agoa, which are signature bipartisan programmes that have been very impactful and well received by the people of the continent,” said Lamola.

“Similarly, we would also want to see value-add by investors from the US in our country, not only a relationship of extraction of minerals but value-add in our

continent [by] helping us with industrialisation, with manufacturing, with modernising and leapfrogging our country into a new modern society.

“And this also relates to various issues in relations to geopolitical matters, that such should also be handled as a mutual respectful relationship, and we will continue to engage with this country on the basis of that mutual respect. That we will not tell the US what to do and we expect the US not to tell us what to do.”

Lamola said that the US remains a critical trade and investment partner as well as a significant contributor to the development of South Africa.

He said South Africa remains “open to being persuaded” on several geopolitical issues and that “we are hopeful that we can also persuade the US on a number of issues in various multilateral platforms and this becomes a relationship of mutual respect and of mutual beneficiation”.

Speaking at the same event, former assistant US trade representative for Africa Rosa Whitaker said it was wrong for a developmental business model such as Agoa to be weaponised by the US to pressure some countries into bending to its pressures.

“We need to stop weaponising it,” Whitaker said. “Agoa has become a weapon rather than a business tool if a country doesn’t agree with us. And that’s because maybe our diplomacy isn’t working. I love the Biden-Harris administration, they know I’m their champion, but we started with 38 eligible Agoa countries now they are under 32 because somebody doesn’t agree with us,” she said.

According to Whitaker, merely renewing Agoa is not enough, the US has to do more.

“I would leverage every asset we have,” she said, arguing that there need to be “tax incentives for US companies to source and invest in Africa. We know that tax incentives work.”