Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Sergei Chirikov/AFP)
Some news stories stop you in your tracks. This was one of them. It can take many years to build a reputation, but only a few minutes to lose it. That was South Africa’s plight, yesterday.
If South Africa has wittingly given or sold arms to Russia it will have disastrous consequences — for the country’s standing in the world and for its economy.
My instant reaction was that the implications would be immeasurable, such would be the ripple effect of such a bombshell of an allegation from the US Ambassador.
On Tuesday, I listened carefully as minister for international relations, Naledi Pandor, once again explained Pretoria’s stance on Ukraine. Non-alignment, she pleaded, is not neutrality; it is taking the side of peace rather than the side of one or other of the combatants.
Giving or selling arms to Russia would drive a coach and horses through this position, instantly turning South Africa into a rogue state that cannot be trusted.
Its place in international affairs — as a trustworthy and reasonable member of the G20, for instance — destroyed; its principled call for consistency in the application of the international rule of law in tatters.
On the face of it, the response options for Pretoria were binary. Either Ambassador Reuben Brigety’s averment was true or it was not. Certainly, the hard geo-politics of the Ukrainian conflict and the emotive forces it provokes on all sides required a quick and decisive answer.
Instead, yet again, President Cyril Ramaphosa fumbled. He equivocated on an issue that brooks no equivocation. Even if, in time, the allegation is disproven, the reputational damage will have been done. No smoke without fire, and all that.
Just ask the minister of defence, Thandi Modise. Yes or no; did we or didn’t we?
Apparently Ramaphosa did ask Modise and the answer was no.
The same answer came from the chair of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), Mondli Gungubele.
A sale of arms to Russia would probably amount to an unlawful breach of the relevant legislation — the National Conventional Arms Control Act 2002, which guides the NCACC to avoid approving the sale of arms to countries that are at war or involved in suppression of human rights or other transgressions of international law.
Gungubele told parliament in February that the NCACC had not received or approved any sale of arms to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine the year before.
But for some reason, either Ramaphosa had failed to get these answers before he stood before the National Assembly to answer presidential questions yesterday afternoon not long after Brigety had dropped his bombshell — in which case, Ramaphosa and his advisors were foolhardy in sending him to battle without such information – or he had received the answers but for some reason decided not to share the information with parliament and the nation.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed the denials from the ministry of defence and NACA to me at 10.30pm last night and acknowledged that if this was so, it was essential to get the denials firmly into the public record as soon as possible.
Yet, by 1am, as I wrote this piece, no such announcements had been made.
The sluggishness of the government at such moments is really something to behold. What event, one wonders, would be required to stir it into more urgent action.
As the world’s press — from the Financial Times to the New York Times, from the BBC to Al-Jazeera and beyond — reported that the US had publicly accused South Africa of providing arms to Russia, Pretoria doodled and dawdled.
But, the US position on the matter should not go unquestioned either.
For a start, the timing was intriguing. Presumably, Washington has been sitting on the information for some time. It seems that it was raised with Pretoria, who understandably asked for proof. In turn, according to sources in the South African presidency, the US refused to hand over the evidence unless it was to a “credible authority”.
The obvious implication is that Washington no longer regards the current administration as a credible authority. This is barely any less serious than the charge itself.
To Pretoria, this was a breach of trust on the part of the US, who should have continued to follow diplomatic channels.
The decision to go public, and to do so shortly before Ramaphosa was to answer questions in parliament — raising the further question of whether the American Embassy had primed DA leader, John Steenhuisen — appears to have been a calculated one, designed to inflict maximum damage.
It is born of deep frustration with Pretoria and must have been approved by the White House.
What in these circumstances, asks Magwenya, was President Ramaphosa to do in response yesterday? His side were telling him that there is absolutely nothing to see, while on the other side, the Americans are adamant that they have the evidence to prove the allegation (even though they won’t provide it).
The answer was to appoint a judge to investigate the truth – perfectly logical and reasonable on the face of it, but a wholly inadequate response to such a grave diplomatic and political moment. And not a credible one.
The curious nocturnal activities at Simon’s Town have been in the public domain from the very time they occurred. They happened not just within the jurisdiction of the country but within the confines of a government military naval base.
It is inconceivable that the government does not know what transpired there — even if, say, it was not formally government sanctioned and was, in fact, a private enterprise of some kind.
Regardless, you don’t need a judge to investigate.
That is why if the allegations are true, Ramaphosa should resign and his government should fall.
On Tuesday, Pandor explained that the mission of the South Africa envoys to Washington last week was not to debate the merits or otherwise of the International Criminal Court and South Africa’s membership of it, but to explain Pretoria’s positioning in the UN on Ukraine.
Clearly, they were not persuasive. If anything, it may have been a counter-productive trip — but perhaps through no fault of the envoys or Pretoria.
The stakes on Ukraine have been rising sharply. There is currently no pathway to peace. Military victory is seen as the only possible and acceptable outcome — by both sides.
Washington’s investment in a Ukrainian victory has raised the temperature in Washington. President Joe Biden is feeling the heat.
Back in vogue, BRICS represents a growing threat to US power globally, not least because by the end of the year its combined GDP will be greater than that of the G7 nations.
It is entirely possible, therefore, that Washington has seized the opportunity to attack South Africa’s reputation and to deliberately undermine its trading relationship with the US and the West in general, to put it in its place and to weaken it just a couple of months before it is to host the BRICS summit.
If so, unless Pretoria can somehow put the matter to bed — and convincingly so, and fast — the economic consequences to South Africa’s already beleaguered economy will be devastating.
This is a diplomatic crisis of the highest order. It will require quick footwork and smart leadership to transcend it — from both sides.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.