The appointment of Roelf Meyer as SA’s ambassador to the US has been described by some observers as a diplomatic masterstroke on the part of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The 78-year-old, Gqeberha-born Meyer, a key negotiator in talks to end apartheid in the 1990s, now has the difficult task of mending the broken relationship between Pretoria and Washington as well as promoting trade and general economic relations between the two countries.
His appointment comes after months of tension caused largely by the Donald Trump administration’s unhappiness with SA’s posture on geopolitical issues as well as its policies aimed at addressing racial socioeconomic imbalances caused by our past.
Ramaphosa’s move has been described as a masterstroke because of the belief that, with Meyer — a former leading member of the National Party government of the old order — it would become harder for the right-wing lobby to succeed with its propaganda of painting SA as a country perpetrating “genocide” against white Afrikaners.
There is also hope that, as an experienced politician of conservative persuasion, Meyer would enjoy better relations with Washington than his predecessor, Ebrahim Rasool, whose ideological outlook placed him in conflict with the Trump administration.
However, this is all dependent on Trump’s own attitude towards SA.
Meyer would certainly work the corridors of power, meeting top Washington diplomats and other personalities to present SA’s case.
But if the US president continues to refuse to objectively look at the evidence — which clearly shows there is no “genocide” here — the Ramaphosa administration might continue to find itself under attack.
Meyer’s preoccupation in the US, therefore, should be on the economic aspect of the relationship.
Washington might be irritated with SA’s choice of international friends and the geopolitical issues it takes up, but Meyer’s job would be to remind the Americans that, despite their differences, the two countries would be better served by continuing with decades-long and mutually beneficial trade relations.
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