The appearance of South African journalist Redi Tlhabi and governance commentator Chris Maroleng before the US Congress’ Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa illustrates a growing trend of Africans’ readiness to sell their countries in exchange for a comfortable stay in the West. 

The trend repeats itself on the media front. The Africans are enlisted to parrot fixed narratives calculated at undermining foreign policies of their respective countries in relation to the East, especially China and Russia.   

The submissions by Tlhabi, a former Radio 702 and SABC presenter, and Maroleng, Chief Executive Officer at Good Governance Africa (a think tank) before the committee in Washington D.C. on September 27 alongside US expert Anthony Carroll fall in that line.

The duo was ostensibly there to help the Africa subcommittee “examine the current status of the United States-South Africa bilateral relationship”, according to Republican James E. Risch, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 

The bypassing of SA’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) is no show of the US engaging in good faith with SA. This ill-advised engagement did more harm than good to South Africa’s foreign policy, pursuant to a larger U.S agenda for Africa. 

Their submissions’ real purpose was to limit SA’s foreign policy options from extending to China and Russia. This is consistent with the wider agenda of US Ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety to force South Africa’s hand. This was after Brigety’s false claims that Pretoria supplied arms to Moscow, for use in Ukraine, backfired. 

In typical high horse manner, Tlhabi’s submission was that South Africa’s democracy must not be allowed to collapse while finding some of its foreign policy choices disappointing. She called for a strong economy to keep “rogue” nations out. She took issue with many South African politicians that “say stupid things”, creating an impression that her invited perspective was the country’s official stance.

This included an unnamed minister’s remark that the U.S’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded non-profit organizations (NPOs), which is “nonsense”. Her assertion is that U.S. policies such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and USAID benefitted ordinary South Africans, who aren’t listening to politicians. 

In Tlhabi’s comparative analysis, South Africa benefits far more from its relationship with America than it does with Russia. The country has more in common with America than with Russia because of a free press, judiciary and robust civil society that pushes against state excesses.  That as it may, South Africa and Africa do not want to appear weak and dance to America’s tune. 

Standing opposite SA-US good relations, she expresses concern that Russia is making an aggressive return by its engagement with the continent that she is speaking outside of. From her external vantage point, she sees Africa not only as the stage where Russia projects its power to the U.S. but is also a space where it exploits commercial opportunities. 

She attributes Russia’s success to weaker states with precarious democracy, and a non-existent regulatory environment making the returns in such countries quick. The countries include Madagascar, Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR). She said Russia uses normative justifications like anti-imperialism and sovereignty to penetrate the African continent. Moscow also exploits the anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and anti-racism messages resonating in Africa to pursue its foreign policy objectives. 

Thlabi holds that America remains “our strong ally and partner” but does not enjoy the same affection because it’s viewed as threatening, condescending, and treated with disdain. 

She sees Russia presenting itself as Africa’s ally, claiming to treat the continent as an equal partner in strengthening economies and is unimpressed with the multipolar world it is energizing.  

Tlhabi’s submission is, at best, to be described as innocent but inadvertently paints a much sought-after rosy picture by America. In her book, all about China and Russia is propaganda. Overall, she ranks America as SA’s true friend albeit there is nothing to show by way of sacrifice towards this esteemed friendship. 

In the darkest of hours when SA needed friends, Nelson Mandela was listed as a terrorist ‘constructive engagement’ advanced by the US as a business case against sanctions. The then USSR made available arms and Cuba deployed its soldiers. While the struggle was in progress it was business as usual for more than 600 US corporations in the country and failed to pay reparations after 1994.

Tlhabi and Maroleng were laundering an ugly history of colonial land dispossession. Badmouthing China does not help to pass America as SA’s best friend.  If it were so, the US would have long supported South Africa’s quest for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. China is Africa’s largest two-way trading partner, hitting $254 billion in 2021, exceeding by a factor of four US-Africa trade. It is also the largest provider of foreign direct investment.

Tlhabi told the Senate committee that AGOA, which offers exclusive access to US markets, Pepfar, and USAID policies, have benefitted South Africans. The majority of whom are poor, black and marginalised from the mainstream economy, have hardly benefitted. 

AGOA benefitted big industries and corporations that are mostly white-owned and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). If it had benefited ordinary people, as Thlabi would have it believed, South Africa would not be sitting with rampant poverty, inequality, unequal and youth unemployment.

AGOA opened doors for chicken dumping by the US at below-market prices, killing the local poultry industry. In other parts of the continent, the policy collapsed the local textile industry when America used it to flood the market with second-hand clothing. If anything, AGOA is the US version of South Africa’s BEE policy, which enriched the black elites even though it was supposedly designed to give ordinary black people a shot in the economy. 

If anything, South Africa should have exited this US patronage and foreign policy instrument in 2010 when AGOA’s first 10-year agreement ended. This should be terminated by 2025, when the current deal expires. That scheme is aimed at third-world countries with no economic muscles to negotiate a better bilateral trade deal with the US on their own. South Africa is not such a country. SA is the most advanced economy in Africa to make Bain its continued stay in AGOA. 

Tlhabi says that South Africa’s foreign policy is often disappointing. At issue is refusal by SA to choose between Russia and the West, implement US sanctions on Russia and publicly condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine. This, to Tlhabi, is disappointing a foreign policy. 

The point Tlhabi misses is that foreign policy is about national interests and sovereignty. An inference to make is that Tlhabi views her own country as an American vassal.

Tlhabi’s assertion that the CIA does not fund local NGOs and NPOs is not substantiated by facts. She does not understand that the CIA does not fund NPOs and media proxies in South Africa directly. It does so through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED was founded in 1983 and is “dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world”. 

The NED funds more than 2,000 NGOs  “working for democratic goals” in more than 100 countries. Effectively, these NPOs and NGOs furthering US foreign policy objectives are bankrolled by the likes of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation (OSF). For Tlhabi to dismiss as nonsense, even the remotest possibility of the CIA funding local NGOs, smacks of ignorance, allowing for SA to be a pawn on the US’s foreign policy chessboard. 

By alleging that South Africa shares US values, Tlhabi is echoing the American exceptionalism idea preached by imperialists and supremacists in that country. The notion that American values are universal is a charade used to mask US disrespect for other countries’ values, governance systems and cultures. 

For instance, the Arabs, Muslims, Russians and Chinese are each unique, with different cultures, values, and governance systems from those of the U.S. But they have thrived and developed within their own values and systems. 

A better grasp of what was at play during the subcommittee meeting, is reflected in Risch’s opening statement setting the tone for Tlhabi and Maroleng. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Africa berated South Africa’s foreign and domestic policies. He accused the country of working with China and Russia in BRICS to fast-track the de-dollarisation campaign. Risch also claimed the governing ANC was corrupt and had abandoned Nelson Mandela’s values. 

Risch went to charge the ANC of having drifted from constitutionalism, manipulating the black economic empowerment (BEE) to enrich themselves, and accepting money from Russian oligarchs.

He said the party was failing to provide basic services and was feasting while South Africa’s infrastructure collapsed under the weight of corruption. 

“While the South African story is one of hope, reconciliation and determination, the ANC of today is motivated by perpetuating a system of elite capture built on corruption and increasing government dependence through its National Democratic Revolution while clearly deepening relations with the Communist Party of China and [Vladimir] Putin’s Russia,” Risch said. 

To Risch, the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg was proof that South Africa was “actively” involved in Beijing and Moscow’s effort to de-dollarize the world and “rewrite international norms”. And so did Risch set the stage for his “distinguished quests”. 

What followed thereafter was a repudiation of all else that was undesirable, taking a cue from Risch. Surely, that is not a way to enhance US-SA relations for the better. To this end, Tlhabi and Maroleng added their names to the growing list of unpatriotic Africans ever willing to sell their countries for all the lifestyle comforts the West offers. 

Mahasha Rampedi is the editor-in-chief of African Times in Johannesburg, South Africa.