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JEREMY MAGGS: The United States has accused South Africa of selling arms to Russia for use in the Ukraine. Pretoria has now appointed a retired judge to probe the allegations, but the negative fallout is already underway. There are suggestions that we are close to becoming a rogue state. Peter Fabricius is an independent journalist and analyst on foreign policy issues and writes mainly for the Daily Maverick. Peter, this is a serious game-changing allegation.
PETER FABRICIUS: Ja, it is, it’s a big deal and obviously they are going to have to come up with the evidence. It was suspected for a long time and there were hints, anonymous sources from the embassy saying they thought this is what it was all about and now he [US ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety] just came out and put it bang on the table, which was quite a surprise.
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JEREMY MAGGS: Peter, the United States surely wouldn’t be making a claim or an allegation like this unless there was irrefutable proof?
PETER FABRICIUS: I would think so. People can get things wrong, but clearly, and he was extremely confident about it, he said ‘I’ll bet my life on it, on the accuracy of this information’. So you would assume that he’s got some pretty hard evidence.
JEREMY MAGGS: Diplomatically then, Peter, where does this leave South Africa?
PETER FABRICIUS: Look, this obviously impacted our relations with the US and to some degree, I would think, with other Western countries but particularly the US. I don’t think we’re breaching any international treaties or anything if we’re selling arms to Russia. There are obviously no UN sanctions on it now because Russia would have blocked that. But it would have a serious impact on our relations. It could, for example, and this is what has been conjectured a lot, cause us to be removed from Agoa [African Growth and Opportunities Act] or [have] some of our benefits that we derive from Agoa suspended or cancelled.
JEREMY MAGGS: Just remind us again how important that Agoa preferential trade agreement is?
PETER FABRICIUS: Ja, it is, last year we exported US$3 billion worth of goods under it, which I think was almost a 50% increase on the year before and what it particularly seems to do is give access to the US market for value-added goods from South Africa, like auto and agricultural goods, processed agricultural and so on. It is very important and it’s also symbolically, I think, very important because if we were deprived of that it would have some impact on confidence amongst US investors.
JEREMY MAGGS: The response from South Africa so far is to appoint a retired judge to conduct an independent investigation. Is this going to achieve anything, do you think, or is it simply a time-buying exercise?
PETER FABRICIUS: Ja, it does look pretty much like the latter. One would have to ask why has it taken so long to get to this point when this ship docked in Simon’s Town in early December?
The defence force has been remarkably unforthcoming with information about what happened, what was loaded and/or unloaded.
I suspect that it’s because of that that the American ambassador actually came out with that because he probably thought this is just going to be shelved for the indefinite future and now is the moment to get the information out.
JEREMY MAGGS: From a Western perspective, diplomatically, and I guess, optically, Peter, it’s going to be very difficult to pull back from something like this, isn’t it?
PETER FABRICIUS: Ja, look, it’s a big step, if they can’t produce the evidence, that’s going to make the US look pretty bad, and if they do, it’s going to make us look pretty bad. What we’ve seen – and there’s a great piece by Ferial Haffajee, my colleague at Daily Maverick, [on Thursday] morning – is it seems like there’s going to be a big fight back from the pro-Russian camp in the ANC, so I think this is presenting Cyril Ramaphosa with quite a conundrum.
JEREMY MAGGS: That’s the internal dynamic, as far as the ruling party is concerned, but what about other African nations that would perhaps lean more towards supporting Russia, does this perhaps have the potential to re-alter, in some way, the diplomatic map?
PETER FABRICIUS: That’s an interesting question because what we’re seeing, for example, is we are seeing a drift of some of those countries in between in Africa and elsewhere towards Brexit because they don’t want to get caught up in another Cold War and so on. But this might be a warning to countries that the US takes this kind of thing very seriously and that anybody who’s thinking of, I don’t know how else you’d express it, but taking on Wagner Group [Russian paramilitary organisation] or whatever to be your ally, could be facing quite serious consequences.
JEREMY MAGGS: Referencing that report in the Daily Maverick earlier [on Thursday], it also suggests that there is the chance, the possibility maybe, that we’ve joined the list of so-called global rogue nations. That’s not a place that South Africa wants to find itself in right now.
PETER FABRICIUS: Ja, there was a very interesting discussion in the US Senate hearing, where Lindsey Graham, who is quite a powerful senator, was quizzing Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, and it wasn’t about South Africa but what he was saying is that we should be declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, and if China is helping Russia with weapons or whatever, then they should bear the consequences. I had also heard from congressional sources that that might be one of the consequences, that if they declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism or something like that, then anybody who supports them becomes liable for consequences under US law.
JEREMY MAGGS: Peter Fabricius, thank you very much.
