The ANC no longer needs to consort with despots

It was the early 1990s and the winding, rutted road from Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, to Massawa on the Red Sea was still littered with burnt-out army trucks and vehicles, the result of a brutal war by the Eritreans which ultimately drove Ethiopian strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam from power. Along the way, guerrilla hideouts had become something of a tourist attraction. On the outskirts of Massawa, wooden boxes under bushes contained human limbs still in their army boots. The air was thick with the stench of decaying human flesh.

An Eritrean woman, hearing we were South African, had a simple question: how could the ANC have embraced Mengistu, their oppressor, when he was committing such atrocities? Weren’t the

Eritreans, like the ANC, fighting for their own liberation from an oppressive regime? She wanted to understand. We couldn’t offer an explanation.

Mengistu had been one of the ANC’s strongest backers. Radio Freedom broadcast some of its propaganda from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Even as Mengistu hunted and killed his opponents, the ANC stood by him. Even as his policies and disdain led to the deaths of about a million people in the

Ethiopian famine, the ANC stood by him. Even as he waged war against liberation groups mainly in Tigray and Eritrea — organisations that one would assume would be the ANC’s soulmates — the ANC stuck with its murderous benefactor. In the end, Mengistu lost the war and fled with his entourage to Zimbabwe, where he’s presumably still enjoying his sadza.

The woman’s pained inquiry came to mind this week as Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived to personally accept plaudits from the South African government. Like that woman in Eritrea, I, too, don’t understand. Words don’t seem enough to express the indignation.

How can a country that is a poster child for overcoming almost impossible odds to avoid a racial conflagration, that espouses the best human rights ethos there is and that is home to four Nobel Peace Prize laureates now be coddling the most hideous regime since the Nazis? Was the allegiance to civil rights and international law just a gimmick? Maybe giving comfort to murderers like Mengistu, and now Vladimir Putin, has always been the ANC’s inclination.

The joint manoeuvre by the South African, Chinese and Russian navies off Durban next month is icing on the cake for Putin, and a middle finger to his detractors. Lining up with us behind Russia are rogue states such as Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Splendid company indeed.

The Russians can’t believe their luck. They’re desperate for friends. Getting a poodle on a platter like South Africa is a huge propaganda coup. Unlike the other regimes, South Africa is more valuable because of its pretensions to democracy. The ANC is simply Russia’s useful idiot. And it should wear that mantle with pride.

Naledi Pandor, smart, sophisticated, educated in the West, had, at the beginning of the invasion, castigated the Russians, calling on them to get out of Ukraine. But there she was this week beside Lavrov, grinning from ear to ear, enjoying the limelight.

It wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by the Americans that not so long ago she had bluntly told the visiting US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to mind his own business. But this week she couldn’t bring herself to repeat her statement that Russia should cease its aggression against its neighbour. To do so would be infantile, she said. Such contortions. Such cowardice.

Lavrov was made to feel very much at home; he was among friends. He hopefully brought fraternal greetings from the monster in Moscow to Cyril Ramaphosa, who must obviously have shown the same excitement as when Putin kindly took his call last year. His much-touted offer to mediate in the conflict was obviously conveniently forgotten. What’s left for him now is perhaps a pilgrimage to Moscow. Ramaphosa is a small man, trying to walk in the shoes worn by giants.

What’s frustrating — even more, infuriating — about South Africa prostrating itself before the Russians is that there seems no discernible benefit for this foolishness. In fact, it is patently counterproductive, going completely against the country’s interests.

South Africa’s most important trading partners are Western countries, the source of investment and jobs. Try as you may, you can’t wish that away. We’ve now boldly and unambiguously chosen to side with their avowed enemy in the most consequential European conflict since World War 2. They’d be forgiven if they were to adopt a standoffish attitude. Nobody — except perhaps David Mabuza — goes to Russia for anything.

It was perhaps understandable for the ANC to consort with despots when it was in exile. It had to be grateful for any help it could get and Western countries were not always forthcoming with aid to what they regarded as a terrorist organisation. But the ANC is now head of a government that is guided by a certain set of principles. And it needs to live — or die — by those values. It owes it to its people to act in a responsible manner. Maybe the ANC was fighting for power, not principle. If it can support the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians in their own country what, then, was its beef with apartheid?

But maybe there’s method in the madness. Perhaps in the true tradition of current practices, the comrades and their cronies are throwing the javelin ahead, hoping for lucrative Russian oil and gas contracts down the line.

In the end, though, it is not about the grotesque barbarity of the Russians or even the broken limbs or mangled bodies of innocent babies in a foreign land. Ultimately, it is about what type of society we want for ourselves.