South Africa Should Deal Constructively with Ambassador Bozell

Ambassador Bozell is a man that South Africa can do business with, engage him constructively

Watching the Biznews speech and short interview with the new US Ambassador, I was struck by how lucky South Africa continues to be. Unfortunately, we have elites who are spoiled and don’t have a proper appreciation for this. This is clear when you look at the reaction to the Ambassador’s comments from the loudest voices, even though the substance of what he said practically begged South Africa to reach a settlement with the US and the Ambassador clearly values South Africa as an important US ally.

Ambassador Bozell is an interesting character. Just by his unconventional appearance you can tell that he is a bit of a maverick. He is also a highly intelligent person, who seems to genuinely want to understand the country. He is a far cry from the rabid racist right-winger we were told to expect by some media sources. I would go so far as to say he is a better choice than Joel Pollak, the person he was competing with for the post. Mr Pollak struck me as prioritising Zionist interests rather than American ones.

Ambassador Bozell seems to put American interests above everything else; that is good for South Africa because it means we can work with the man. He truly believes there is a mutually beneficial outcome that can be reached, based on his statements. Knowing how Americans operate, South Africa would be wise to negotiate with someone like Bozell, even though I do have some concerns.

Let’s start with the ambassador’s five asks. Firstly, prioritising the safety of rural communities is a no-brainer. These are isolated communities that often suffer the brunt of the country’s violent crime epidemic because of their isolation. And, according to the government’s own counter-narrative to the white genocide narrative, these crimes affect mostly black people. Anyone who is familiar with rural KZN would agree with this given how many black farmers have suffered from violent stock theft to the point where some of us have no desire to own cattle because of how risky it is.

Secondly, the government can condemn the ‘kill the boer’ chant, that’s not a problem, and they should condemn it because it expresses sentiments that run counter to the values that led to the constitutional order when we chose negotiation over war. The government cannot wave a wand and criminalise the chant, however, we have separation of powers, and the government cannot intrude on the domain of the courts. Doing so would legitimately violate our sovereignty by forcing the government to violate the constitution. Remember also that the US is not the only powerful country we deal with, what happens if the Chinese ask for the same thing? What if they demand the arrest or execution of a South African?

The third ask would also benefit South Africans, the stupid and unconstitutional concept of nil compensation can only be used to violate the property rights of South Africans. In fact property rights are already weakened in various ways, through: squatters rights, asset forfeiture, the nationalisation of water and mineral rights (which is something that has allowed the government to rob mostly black property owners, for those who think property rights are white), the very existence of expropriation in our law even if you don’t introduce zero compensation into the mix.

There are too many ways the government violates our rights. We do not need them to add another one by giving themselves the power to take property without payment. And it is clearly not about land reform; every thinking person knows there are many ways to do land reform without weakening everyone’s property rights, this has been discussed endlessly. It is very sinister of the government to pretend otherwise, and I fully support Ambassador Bozell in this, he must put more pressure on this one thing especially and my preference would be to even strengthen property rights beyond what we had before nil compensation was introduced.

The 4th ask on BEE is also reasonable. The ambassador made it clear that he does not deny the need for redressing the oppression that occurred in the past. Rather than some right-wingers who simply don’t care about the past and want South Africa to not focus on redress at all, the Ambassador is willing to negotiate on this. And South Africans need to get it out of their heads that there’s some clear separation between domestic and foreign policy issues, not only does BEE affect trade, powerful countries like the US get to define what their interests are, if they don’t like your domestic policy, that is a legitimate subject of discussion, we need to grow up when it comes to this.

Expanding digital and mineral cooperation is a little vague, probably deliberately so. I suspect the US wants to discuss sensitive issues under this specific topic and we should engage in good faith. I know they want to create alternative supply chains for critical minerals that would bypass China. That is an opportunity for us. The ambassador said Trump’s top priority regarding South Africa is to have a non-aligned South Africa and that is the best posture for our country.

The only concern I have about the outcome of any negotiation is that Trump often acts unpredictably. We may negotiate with the reasonable Ambassador Bozell, only for Trump to levy sanctions in the middle of negotiations because he saw something on TV. Trump’s rash nature has weakened the US even among its allies, many of whom are now seeking alternatives to the US by engaging with China, often after years of not doing so, we must do the same and also prioritise our relationship with China, especially after the moves to remove tariffs on African exports into China.

There are issues that the ambassador signalled are of concern to America but they’re willing to live with, these include keeping diplomatic ties with countries like Iran, taking Israel to the ICJ (I don’t think an Ambassador Pollak would have given such a signal) and some of our other diplomatic moves. I am grateful to Alec Hogg and the Biznews team for providing a platform for the ambassador to put forward his agenda so that we can in turn be able to see how our government responds to this agenda and whether this response is reasonable.

The early indications are not good, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula gave a predictable response:

I don’t understand how people like him think; what is wrong with the US respectfully outlining their priorities? Would they prefer to escalate this to the point where these are demanded while an aircraft carrier group sits outside Cape Town or Durban? These people need to grow up. The fact that the ambassador sees South Africa as being in the top 10 of his most important priority countries reflects both an opportunity and a potential peril.

I am not saying we must give up on our sovereignty; we must simply understand that countries are only as sovereign as the power they wield. The one thing we must never compromise is the constitution. BEE is not a constitutional requirement. We now have a government that has weakened us diplomatically everywhere, including in our African and SADC backyard, that has presided over the destruction of the military. And they want to talk about sovereignty?

They have destroyed our ability to be sovereign, and we must be grateful that the US is coming to us with a basket of demands that mostly benefit South Africans, all South Africans. We must be grateful that we have an ambassador who did not reassert the false white genocide narrative. And most of all, we must be grateful that, having seen what happened in Venezuela and what is happening in Iran, we have an opportunity to negotiate without a gun held to our heads. This gives us an opportunity to buy time to build our strength.

I beg the government to ignore the loud voices that don’t understand how power works, and take the opening given by Bozell. We are not some untouchable country and the American demands are not unreasonable at all; in fact they will help this country. Americans and Trump in particular, will give you enough rope to hang yourself, if you don’t take a reasonable offer, unreasonable violence often follows, we need adults who understand this running our government.

Mpiyakhe Dhlamini is a libertarian, writer, programmer and an Associate of the Free Market Foundation.