Rasool: 'Ramaphosa is correct to be cautious in appointing a new ambassador'

Former South African Ambassador to the United States (U.S) Ebrahim Rasool said that President Cyril Ramaphosa is correct to be cautious in appointing a new ambassador after Rasool was expelled from the United States.

In an exclusive interview with Independent Media at the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) on Monday in Cape Town, Rasool said the question the country must ask itself is whether it wants to go through the embarrassment of nominating an ambassador, and then having them wait, which was the original plan by the Republicans with him.

Rasool said that he was fortunate to have been credentialed by former US President Joe Biden in his last week of office.

“The question is, do we want to go through that embarrassment of the US making our ambassador stay in limbo for a few months, and then because we have nominally appointed an ambassador, it cuts other channels of communication.

“This (current) state shows that you can still pick up the phone, without going through the embassy. That is the one reason why it is correct to be cautious. The second reason is that you cannot allow the US to choose our ambassador to their country for themselves, because what you then do is that you get an echo chamber…then we have someone who goes ‘Yes, Mr Trump, you are right’.”

“Thirdly, if you choose even a mildly independent ambassador, you will not find such a person of integrity who, at some point or other, did not express disquiet about the direction of the United States under President Trump.”

Rasool even touched on  Mcebisi Jonas, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s special envoy to the United States, who was rejected by Washington in May this year.

“Here is an astute business person, but his astuteness economically is also his astuteness politically, and therefore, you won’t find a clean slate in terms of that.”

On who could replace the vacant position, he said that “because people say a white skin can more easily go into the White House, (I’ve thought) that if you can find a white person with the right values, and in that regard, I threw out the name Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

“Someone whose growth from the National Party to the ANC I have watched, and I think that not him per se, but that that is the kind of person that we can use to satisfy two things - the love of a white skin in the White House, and the values that our country needs presently,” Rasool said.

Rasool also commented on South Africa’s current relationship with the United States, to which he said that it is not isolated because countries like India and Brazil, and even the European Union (EU), are also experiencing bullying from the US.

“South Africa’s relationship with the United States has a particular tint to it, but it is not atypical. Sometimes South Africans think that it is only done unto us, when you look at what President Trump has done to Brazil, because a buddy of his, (former President) Jair Bolsonaro, has been charged with corruption.

“You think what he has done to India, because it allegedly buys oil from Russia, if you look at what he has done to the EU because they don’t spend as much on their defence as they should - then South Africa is just one of a few that he has put into his cross-hairs, and where he is driving a hard agenda - a pernicious and punishing agenda against such countries.

“We are, in a sense, in good company when we consider who else he has put in his cross hairs. The question is not to watch South Africa, as if South Africa is isolated, it is to watch the growing isolation of the United States of America.

“The only thing that keeps the United States afloat is that they are the most powerful nation in the world, the richest nation in the world, and the most militarised.

“We are not the exception; they are the exception. We are not irrational; the United States under Trump is irrational, and therefore, when our chattering classes get together in South Africa and we pretend that South Africa is the irrational party, SA misses the deadlines, SA has the undisciplined ambassador, SA has done something egregiously wrong to the white community, and we start turning on ourselves - we miss the point.

“That is not what the Indians (in India) are doing, even if they did not vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Brazilians are uniting against an outside threat, even if they did not vote for President Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva). It is only South Africa that fragments in the face of bullying by President Trump.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za