Legislation has been launched in the US House of Representatives which might require the US Administration to conduct a full review of US relations with South Africa as a result of Pretoria is supposedly siding with America’s adversaries, Hamas. Russia and China.
(The legislative motion was first reported on by Mail & Guardian -Ed)
If handed, the “U.S.- South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act” would additionally require the Administration to report to Congress “explicitly stating whether or not South Africa has engaged in actions that undermine United States nationwide safety or overseas coverage pursuits.”
Republican John James and Democrat Jared Moscowitz launched the invoice on Wednesday. The invoice says that in distinction to its said non-alignment, the ANC authorities has been siding with “malign actors”, constructing army and political ties with Russia and China and supporting Hamas , designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a identified proxy of Iran.
These ties undermine America’s nationwide safety and overseas coverage pursuits and “threaten our way of life,” the invoice says.
The invoice mentioned “ it is in the national security interest of the United States to deter strategic political and security cooperation and information sharing with the PRC and the Russian Federation, particularly any form of cooperation that may aid or abet Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine or its international standing or influence.”
The doc isn’t fairly clear about how US safety and overseas coverage pursuits have been undermined, although it does counsel that America’s relations with SA are distracting it from in search of its personal vitality safety.
The invoice mentioned that no later than 30 days after enactment of the invoice – if it handed by each the House and the Senate – the President ought to ship to Congress and publicly launch “an unclassified determination explicitly stating whether South Africa has engaged in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests.”
This wording displays the wording of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) which supplies preferential entry to the US marketplace for the exports of eligible African nations, together with South Africa.
A rustic will be deemed ineligible if it undermines US nationwide safety or overseas coverage pursuits. Democratic Party Senator Chris Coons has launched a invoice that might require the Administration to maintain an “out of cycle” review this yr on whether or not South Africa ought to stay an Agoa beneficiary.
The new invoice launched this week would additionally require the President and his ministers, companies and officers to conduct a complete review of the bilateral relationship between the US and SA and to submit a report on its findings to Congress no later than 120 days after the enactment of the invoice.
The invoice lists many actions and statements by SA which it says present the ANC authorities is siding with Hamas, Russia and China.
It mentioned after Hamas’ “unprovoked and unprecedented horrendous attack on Israel on October 7, 2023” when it killed and kidnapped a whole lot of Israelis, members of the South African Government and leaders of the ANC had delivered “a variety of antisemitic and anti-Israel-related statements and actions.”
These included the assertion of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation on the day of the assault, which urged Israel’s restraint in response to the assault and implicitly blamed Israel for frightening the assault by “continued illegal occupation of Palestine land, continued settlement expansion, desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque and Christian holy sites, and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.”
As additional proof of the ANC authorities’s alleged siding with Hamas, the invoice cites International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor’s telephone name with Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh on 17 October 17; her go to to Iran—“which is actively funding Hamas” – on 22 October 2023, to meet President Ebrahim Raisi ; Pandor’s name on 7 November, 2023 for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to cost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with warfare crimes; Pretoria’s request to the ICC on 17 November 2023, to investigates warfare crimes in Palestinian territories; and SA’s “politically motivated” cost of genocide in opposition to Israel at the International Court of Justice on 29 December 2023.
As proof of Pretoria’s “robust relationship” with Russia, the invoice cites Pretoria; permitting the United States-sanctioned Russian cargo ship, the Lady R, to dock and switch arms at Simons Town naval base in December 2022; internet hosting offshore naval workout routines with Russia and China in February 2023; reneging on its preliminary name for Russia to instantly withdraw its forces from Ukraine; and “dispatching multiple high-level official delegations to Russia to further political, intelligence, and military cooperation.”
And the invoice mentioned that the SA authorities and ANC had been undermining SA’s democratic constitutional system of governance, by ongoing cooperation with China.
This included recruiting former United States and NATO fighter pilots to practice Chinese army pilots at the Test Flying Academy of South Africa; internet hosting six Chinese authorities backed Confucius Institutes which it mentioned had been an vital a part of the Chinese Community Party’s (CCP) exterior propaganda construction; and participation in a political coaching faculty opened in Tanzania funded by the Chinese Communist Party “where it trains political members of the ruling liberation movements in six Southern African countries.”
It additionally cited the acceptance in SA’s media and know-how sectors of Chinese state linked corporations that the United States has restricted due to threats it believes they pose to nationwide safety, together with Huawei Technologies, ZTE and Hikvision.
The invoice mentioned these corporations “place South African sovereignty at risk and facilitate the CCP’s export of its model of digitally aided authoritarian governance underpinned by cyber controls, social monitoring, propaganda, and surveillance.”
The invoice additionally cited the ANC authorities’s “substantially mismanaging” state assets and its usually ineffective supply of public providers, “threatening the South African people and the South African economy…”
It mentions the vitality disaster, the railway crisis- hindering the export of minerals- and the present cholera outbreak, which it mentioned was the worst in 15 years. This was partially due to the authorities’s failure to ship clear water to households.
The invoice additionally cited “rampant state capture” throughout the Zuma years which it mentioned continued to negatively influence financial growth and residing requirements.
It is certainly not clear that this invoice would go each the House of Representatives and the Senate to turn out to be legislation and even that the House would vote on it. Republicans, who’re typically extra hostile to South Africa management the House however Democrats management the Senate and can be extra probably to reject the invoice to keep away from embarrassing and tying the palms of the Biden administration.
The invoice nonetheless offers a sign of the pattern of enthusiastic about SA in Congress. DM