GERRIT OLIVIER: SA’s position on Ukraine is ‘neutrality’ without credibility

A hallmark of SA’s foreign policy is the pigheaded way in which it subjects critical national interests and basic morality to unscrupulous ideological predilections. As columnist Barney Mthombothi wrote in the Sunday Times edition of January 15: “The ANC has an almost instinctive liking for rogue regimes that plunder, break international norms and oppress or even kill their people. The more repressive, the more likable, it would seem.”

The most glaring example of this aberration is SA’s unstinting support for the Russian dictator and war criminal Vladimir Putin. While most of the world has condemned that country’s ruthless illegal military attack on Ukraine, SA has sided with a handful of authoritarian regimes, refusing to confront Russia for its inhumane atrocities notwithstanding its noble founding commitment to democracy and human rights.

The basic reason for Russia’s aggressive behaviour is rabid anti-Westernism and an attempt to restore its global role and status to what it was at the time of the Soviet Union. Ukraine’s pro-Westernism and democratic restoration were seen as obstacles, which Russia opted to remove by war and conquest. It was particularly emboldened by decades of Western diplomatic incompetence in allowing its successful annexation of Crimea and chunks of eastern Ukraine. It consequently embarked on a murderous intended blitzkrieg operation, which has of course backfired badly.

Without Nato assistance and Western unity the blitzkrieg might have worked for the Kremlin. However, against Putin’s expectations the worm turned, spelling unexpected trouble for Russia and the world.

The stakes are exceptionally high, as the war in Ukraine has evolved into a proxy contest between Nato and Russia, East against West. Nato fully realises the horrible consequences that might follow if the war in Ukraine is lost: the entire North Atlantic geopolitical scenario would change, succumbing to Putin’s aggressive revisionism, expunging Nato, dividing the EU, alienating the US and setting the scene for a new global order under the authoritarian tutelage of Russia and China. For Putin, of course, losing the war would mean losing his presidency and more. 

For both sides losing is a worse-case scenario. However, as things stand, this war does not seem winnable by any side as long as Nato unity holds and global solidarity and support to stop Russia’s murderous campaign persist.

Unfortunately, SA’s foreign policy has followed the opposite course. It pleads “neutrality”, which is clearly phoney given the obsequious interaction of late between international relations & co-operation minister Naledi Pandor and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Watching our minister’s pitiful fawning at the feet of a Russian war criminal is just another manifestation of our foreign policy plumbing new depths, a race to the bottom in a bid to be neither fish nor fowl.

SA’s position amounts to “neutrality” without credibility or legitimacy. While we publicly ascribe to the notion, in reality SA persistently and deliberately undermines the West by obstructing its strenuous efforts to isolate and punish Putin, providing him with succour and a veneer of respectability. The purpose of Lavrov’s frenetic recent visit to SA and other African and Asian countries was precisely to drum up global support for Putin’s illegal war. From what we know, he need not worry about where SA stands. But this will be a costly policy, as debilitating sanctions will inevitably spill over to SA, contaminating future foreign relations and further devastating our stuttering economy.

What our foreign policymakers do not seem to consider is that win or lose, Putin will emerge from the Ukrainian war contaminated; an inexcusable war criminal, and Russia an isolated international pariah. In any case, the cost of the war and the strenuous impact of sanctions will have a crippling effect on the country’s economy and competitiveness for many years to come.

Unfortunately, this prognosis does not seem to carry any weight among Putin’s sycophantic bootlickers in Pretoria. As we know, the “hands off Putin” instruction came straight from no less than President Cyril Ramaphosa himself, forcing Pandor to make a humiliating U-turn after she initially put out a statement saying Russia should pull back.

Pleading phoney neutrality in a bid to run with the hare and hunt with the dogs has not fooled diplomats in Western capitals for a second. Wilfully undermining Western sanctions against Putin’s Russia could be fatal. It could be perceived as no less than sabotage against the West. It is morally appalling to express neutrality to aberrations such as the brutality and genocide against a civilian population that the world has witnessed in Ukraine, particularly for a country boasting SA’s liberation pedigree.

In any case, the legitimacy of this policy is questionable. It is made free of any democratic control, being left in the hands of a coterie of bureaucrats/ideologues (mostly Marxists) with questionable experience of diplomacy and assured of their monopoly of foreign policy decision-making. Or is it? Given the recent flood of critical internet postings, public surveys, and cutting local and foreign media commentary, resentment towards our decrepit foreign policy clearly runs deep, which the government cannot blandly ignore forever, particularly given the upcoming election.

It is well known that economic diplomacy is not our diplomats’ strongest suit, but the logic of their policies is still baffling. While Ramaphosa ostensibly defends human rights (but not in China and Russia, among others) and promotes foreign direct investment, he unscrupulously kowtows to Putin, a war criminal, ignoring the consequences. In 2021 SA’s trade with Nato countries stood at R1.313-trillion, against the meagre R15.7bn with Russia and its allies. At the UN, 111 members voted to condemn Russia for its Ukraine aggression, in sharp contrast to SA’s position. Yet Ramaphosa never misses a chance to bask in the glory of the pomp and circumstance afforded by state visits to Western capitals, even while fawning at the feet of Putin.

SA has once again fumbled the chance to play a meaningful role in the world, earning the dignity and respect that would have done Nelson Mandela proud. Such a role was again in the offing: helping to restore and maintain a free and prosperous world, a world where the fundamental principles of the UN Charter are upheld, where sovereignty and equality are respected and basic human rights defended.

As the Westphalian paradigm of global order goes out of fashion, and with it unfettered globalisation, the need for an alternative neoliberal world order constraining the hostile revisionism of Russia and China is paramount. Wittingly or unwittingly SA has succumbed to the indignities and horse-trading of erstwhile Cold War politics, exploiting the East/West dichotomy and aiding and abetting human right offenders, choosing the side of the aggressive, authoritarian Russia and China against the West. Cry the beloved country!

• Olivier is a former ambassador to Russia and Kazakhstan and emeritus professor at the University of Pretoria.