International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola has condemned the assassination attempt on former US president Donald Trump on Saturday, urging Americans “not to solve their problems through the barrel of a gun”.
“They must solve it through the barrel of the pen, in the ballot box … We hope there will be peace,” Lamola said in an address to the prestigious Chatham House think tank in London on Tuesday, 16 July 2024.
Lamola was asked how his government viewed the prospect of a second Trump presidency.
He said SA would engage with whoever Americans voted for. Lamola noted that Pretoria had already sent a delegation to engage with both Republicans and Democrats and would continue to engage with US lawmakers to ensure SA continued to participate in Agoa – the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Lamola described as “very fruitful” a first meeting earlier in the day with the new Labour Party government’s foreign secretary David Lammy, who was “very clear that our relations should not be based on the fact that we are a former British colony, but will be based on an equally beneficial relationship”.
He and Lammy had agreed on a number of issues, including the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, respect for international law there and in particular on the need for humanitarian aid.
“So there [are] a lot of commonalities between ourselves, I believe, and Great Britain. And it’s a relationship we will harness, we will build for the mutual benefit of both countries.”
He said the one point they did not agree on was how to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “But we agreed to continue to engage.”
Lamola confirmed that South Africa would continue to participate in the peace process in Ukraine which climaxed in a summit in Switzerland last month where he noted that South Africa was represented by President Ramaphosa’s national security adviser Sydney Mufamadi.
He said South Africa had not signed the outcome statement from the meeting because of a deadlock. “We were of the firm view that for the peace mission to succeed, both warring factions must be at the table, Ukraine and Russia.
“We don’t see how you can achieve peace in this process without also engaging with Russia.”
Closer to home
Lamola condemned the coups which have toppled elected governments and replaced them with military juntas in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso in West Africa.
Lamola said that as a constitutional democracy, South Africa believed that changes of government should happen only through the ballot.
“We condemn any form of coup anywhere in the world, including in the African continent, because we believe that they are not part of helping societies to be stable, and orderly transition in government.”
Lamola said the “gracious” way the ANC had accepted the loss of its majority in the recent “very painful elections” had sent “a message to the entirety of the African continent…”
Lamola said in reply to another question that South Africa supported Zimbabwe’s attempt to rejoin the Commonwealth, which it left about 20 years ago to pre-empt expulsion.
“We have always been against the sanctions against Zimbabwe because we have always believed that they harm us the same way they harm Zimbabwe,” he said, referring to the Zimbabwean refugees who fled economic hardship for South Africa.
“The way to resolve the disputes in Zimbabwe is to allow the people of Zimbabwe to go through their own democratic processes, their own systems, and resolve the crisis with the help of the people of the world, and we have played a role in that regard.”
Asked what Pretoria was doing to try to resolve the war in Sudan, Lamola said Ramaphosa had spoken to one of the generals involved in the civil war (apparently a reference to his meeting with Rapid Support Forces leader Hamdan Mohammed “Hemedti” Dagolo) “and there are processes for him to speak to the other leader, and we will continue to open the lines of communications for both parties to be involved, to be engaged in an initiative to find peace in the area, and also the external players in the conflict, because it is an open secret that there are a lot of external players, not only in Sudan, but in the eastern part of the DRC, that must be engaged to find a long-lasting solution.”
Coal country
Lamola was asked why the Just Energy Transition to renewable energy seemed to be taking so long in South Africa. He said that South Africa had been forced to bring back some of its coal-fired power stations because of load shedding, which he claimed explained why there had been no power cuts for almost 100 days.
Retaining coal-fired power stations had been necessary to have an energy supply that was available and stable, he said.
This had affected the amounts that South Africa could claim from the Just Energy Transition Partnership with Western countries in terms of renewables. The need for the transition to be just, to serve the population, had caused the delays, he said.
Lamola also defended the National Health Insurance policy, saying South Africa could not continue with a health system where 10% of the population was served by medical aids and 90% by public health.
Earlier, he addressed an event at Westminster Abbey celebrating 30 years of South African democracy. Lamola said it had been the largest such event outside South Africa, attended by about 1,500 people. DM