In May of this year the US Ambassador to South Africa, Dr Reuben E. Brigety II, made some accusations regarding alleged South African weapons shipments to Russia that caused widespread outrage in the country. He was later forced to backtrack but anger has remained about both his comments and the impact they have had.
The US has been critical of South Africa's continued relations with Russia while South Africa has pushed back against US attempts to encroach on its independence and neutral foreign policy regarding the war in Ukraine.
On September 5 the South African Communist Party (SACP) again released a strongly worded statement demanding the expulsion of the US ambassador:
The South African Communist Party (SACP) reiterates its call for the imperialist United States ambassador to South Africa, Dr Reuben E. Brigety II, to go. Dr Briget baselessly accused South Africa of supporting Russia’s Special Military Operation with weapons in the NATO provoked war in Ukraine. His spurious allegations against our country, as President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his address to the nation on Sunday 3 September 2023, had a damaging effect on our currency, economy and our standing in the world. Despite receiving an opportunity to present evidence to support his claims, Dr Brigety failed to do so.
Meanwhile, Dr Brigety’s attack on our democratic national sovereignty occurred amid the United States’ allocation of about 115 billion dollars, actively taking part in sponsoring the war with direct funding, military hardware, technical capacity and intelligence operations, to name but a few areas. Since then, US military support for Ukraine has soared hand in hand with the imperialist powers of Western Europe, also pumping pounds and euros on Ukraine’s side.
The imperialist powers have no interest in seeing an end to the war by peaceful diplomatic means. Dr Brigety’s baseless allegations and diplomatic misconduct occurred within this context when South Africa was preparing for the African Peace Mission to seek an end to the war by peaceful diplomatic means.
Notwithstanding the independent investigation which proved the hysteric United States ambassador’s wild claims wrong, our country has the full democratic and sovereign right to associate with any country it wishes to associate with. The United States does not have the right to dictate to other countries on their national and foreign policies, and as the people of South Africa we retain our right to resist such imperialist aggression.
In defence of our democratic national sovereignty, the SACP reiterates its call that South Africa must expel Dr Brigety as a matter of urgency. The SACP supports our government’s peaceful and non-aggressive approach to seek an end to the war.