Sunday Times E-Edition

ANC’s pro-Russia stance stuck in a risky Cold War time warp

LINDIWE MAZIBUKO

Between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s almost simultaneous visits to South Africa this week, the ANC government might be tempted to conclude that its clumsy refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago was an astute move, positioning Africa’s leading economy as a desirable and in-demand geopolitical ally on both sides of the conflict.

Indeed both the US and Russia’s jockeying for Africa’s attention might give the impression that the continent is looking like the prettiest girl at the party after most of its 54 UN members abstained from voting on the resolution in March last year to condemn Russia’s illegal annexation of four regions in Ukraine. But South Africa should be careful not to overplay its hand in trying to demonstrate to the US and the EU that it has other suitors, and by openly courting Russia we are doing just that.

Not all economic partners are equal; let us consider the relationships by numbers.

With a GDP no bigger than that of Spain or Brazil — and which is expected to contract by 5.5 percentage points in 2023 — Russia’s pretensions to be Africa’s big brother are questionable at best. Africa’s trade with Russia is valued at only $14bn (about R240bn), while the federation’s foreign direct investment in the continent constitutes a meagre 1% of the total. This is exacerbated by a yawning $10bn deficit in the balance of trade, with Russia exporting seven times more to Africa than it imports.

By comparison, the EU’s trade with Africa was valued at €288bn (about R5.4-trillion) in 2021, China’s at $254bn and the US’s at $65bn.

In South Africa, the picture is even more stark with Russia’s cumulative trade in 2022 worth only R13bn, with a R3.1bn trade deficit. By comparison, South Africa’s trade with the US was worth

R282bn, with a R40.7bn trade surplus.

All this makes our position on Russia irrational at best and downright reckless at worst. We have moved from the much-touted neutrality of last year’s statements from the presidency and the department of international relations & cooperation to an almost word-for-word parroting of Moscow’s world view.

Despite the fact that she herself has now more or less disowned it, I stand by foreign minister Naledi Pandor’s original position on Ukraine; we should have condemned the invasion without delay, and we should view any relationship with Russia with scepticism. Nothing about Moscow’s engagement in Africa inspires confidence, and the autocratic ambitions of Vladimir Putin are certainly not a policy hill any African country should be willing to die on.

Much has been said of the historical relationship between the ANC and the Soviet Union (of which Ukraine was very much a part). If this really is the reason our government is willing to sacrifice the national economic, security and political interest, then we are doomed. And anyway, such nostalgia is based on the falsehood that democratic South Africa’s only champions during the Cold War were behind the Iron Curtain. This is plainly untrue.

The first draft of the Comprehensive AntiApartheid Act of 1986 was introduced in the US congress in 1972. Despite intense resistance from the then US president, Ronald Reagan, working with the National Party in South Africa to scupper the bill, it was passed when a bipartisan group in both the House and the Senate voted to override Reagan’s veto — the first time in the 20th century that a presidential veto had been overridden by the legislature.

South Africa’s complex political memory cannot remain hostage to the nostalgia of ANC party elders who should long ago have left public office, and whose outdated foreign policy instincts have no relationship to the world we live in today.

I am not wholly insensible to the urge to pull African states out of the magnetic field of a world centred on the interests of the so-called West. I am disgusted by notions of “developed” and “developing” nations that imply the economic circumstances on both sides are naturally occurring phenomena, rather than the result of generations of ruthless resource-stripping, sociopolitical oppression and ecological degradation wrought on the continent by nations that today flaunt their ill-gotten wealth and refer to themselves as “rich”.

I am nauseated by the presumption by some nations that they can lecture Africa’s people about “good governance” and “anti-corruption” while simultaneously generating revenue and building entire industries using the proceeds of bribery, illicit financial outflows, unethical labour practices and interference in legitimate democratic processes on the continent.

In this respect, Pandor’s aspiration towards a more multipolar, “redesigned global order” is one I wholeheartedly share. But Russia’s illegal war is not the conduit through which South Africa should seek such a global realignment. Today’s Russia is a an empty-handed suitor.

We must call out hypocrisy where it rears its head, and demand better of those who would partner with us economically and diplomatically. But our lodestar must at all times remain the national and continental interest; not the urge to slake a generations-old thirst for geopolitical retribution.

Comment & Analysis

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2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://times-e-editions.pressreader.com/article/281921662183227

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