Ramaphosa has plenty of controversies and serious allegations against him in his history – but he exposed and humiliated the orange one without even mentioning him
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa is no Nelson Mandela. He has been accused of many things, including providing a massive police presence that carried out an appalling massacre of striking miners, murdering and wounding more than a hundred of them at the behest of a greedy corporate employer. He certainly betrayed the miners, calling their strike ‘dastardly criminal’ action – while he was on the board of the mining company.
But Ramaphosa has humiliated US president Donald Trump after Trump threatened to sign – and today reportedly did sign – measures against South Africa in what is transparently a retaliation for South Africa’s outstanding work against Israel’s genocide at the International Court of Justice, just as Trump has sanctioned the International Criminal Court for daring to hold genocidal Israeli officials to account.
And he did it without even mentioning the orange one.
In a statement on his social media channels, Ramaphosa said that South Africa will continue in solidarity with the Palestinian people oppressed by Israeli occupation – and why. The statesmanlike response was so far removed from Trump’s frothing, and the u-turns in policy that have followed even the first show of resistance by the likes of Mexico, Colombia and Canada – and so full of reference to South Africa’s conquest of apartheid, the rights and duties of humanity and the evils of US-Israeli imperialism – that it was the equivalent of sending Trump to stand in the naughty corner like a two-year-old in a tantrum:
We have always believed that the freedom we won – and the international solidarity from which we benefited – imposes a duty on us to support the struggles of those who continue to experience colonialism and oppression.
South Africa continues to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, who, having endured decades of illegal occupation, are now experiencing indescribable suffering. South Africa has acted in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention by instituting proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
We are fully committed to the articles of the United Nations Charter, including the principle that all members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means. We support the principle of respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states and peoples.
We continue to participate in the different peace processes seeking to bring about a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. South African delegations have been instrumental in developing a framework for negotiations towards a just peace in Ukraine based on the UN Charter and international law.
South Africa continues to advance its agenda of cooperation and multilateralism through its membership of the United Nations, African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement and BRICS group of countries. As humanity confronts unprecedented challenges, we are determined that a reformed and representative United Nations must be at the centre of global affairs.
We will continue to push for progress on the reform of the UN Security Council into a more inclusive, more effective body that is able to ensure peace and security. The work we do and what we stand for needs to be explained to many key players, especially to our trading partners and the many countries and leaders we interact with on the global stage.
With a view to explaining the many positions that we have taken and in particular the objectives we wish to achieve during our Presidency of the G20, I have decided to send a delegation of government and other leaders to various capitals on our continent and across the world. This delegation will interact with various key players on a variety of matters that affect South Africa’s interests.
No lashing out, justified though it would be. No false accusations to justify hare-brained vindictiveness. No need to be Nelson Mandela to do it. And all the more damning of Trump for that.
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Seems Skwawkbox doesn’t like Trump. Has your funding dried up too?
Canada; Mexico; Greenland; Columbia; Panama; UK; EU; Palestinians; Iran; China; South Africa; the ICC/ICJ; The Hague; BRICS; the rest of Global South.
Seems Trump, on behalf of the US Ruling Oligarchy, doesn’t like anybody who does not cry ‘Uncle’ and threatens the US free ride provided by the dollar reserve currency Mafia Ponzi Scheme which would dry up their funding.
And this is different from the usual America because?
The removal of USAID alone is a victory for humanity. His alliance with Musk on government efficiency has highlighted it’ll never happen here (thanks Gordon Brown!) with his Constitutional Reform and Governance act. NAFO and other turds have dried up cos the money has (news cycle has changed). I could go on, and on.
Trump is the man who wrote the book about shafting people in business. But he’s getting results, isn’t he. The border for example.
The bastard is currently mercurial.
Trump will be lucky to survive the year, given the opportunity he has recently presented.
Asked about the danger of being assassinated by Iranian operatives, Trump appeared to dismiss such fears but disclosed that he had left instructions with his aides to destroy Iran in the event of being killed.
“If they did that, they would be obliterated. I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
Handing the crazy’s in both Israel and the Deep State swamp a golden false flag opportunity. If Israeli agents were to kill Trump in a way to frame Iran, then the Israelis stand to gain their big prize of wiping the Islamic Republic off the map, or so they might calculate.
Trump’s approach may work in the limited context of what passes for a culture in the US or with bullying smaller neighbours, but has no purchase outside that context in the real wider world. And even then all it does is generate resentment and future opposition. Which we have seen with Russia, Korea, Iran, and the BRICS. It has no efficacy.
As British journalist Martin Jay notes, “Trump doesn’t really have the communications skills required to negotiate with nations. He only has the threatening sound bite. And most world leaders know this.
His ‘negotiating’ technique is the zero-sum distributive bargaining method, which always has to have a winner and a loser.
The point of securing a deal is how robust and long-lasting it is. The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia would have barely lasted a generation if Trumps numpty approach had been used, for example.
The bottom line is that the Trump approach is merely the extreme end of an approach to getting along with everyone else which everyone else has long recognised makes the USA and its culture non-agreement capable.
What this administration is doing will most certainly unravel at some point, exposing the weaknesses of this aspect of the US Ruling Oligarchy’s approach and the faction which owns it.
Meet the new system, same as the old one – just more brash and honest by saying the quite part out loud.
As the Reverend Chris Hedges notes here:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-empire-self-destructs
“I doubt Musk and his army of young minions in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which isn’t an official department within the federal government — have any idea about how the organizations they are destroying work, why they exist or what it will mean for the demise of American power…..
…..They plan to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the U.S. Postal Service, part of the internal machinery of the empire. The more dysfunctional the state becomes, the more it creates a business opportunity for predatory corporations and private equity firms.”
Leaving “The array of tools used for global dominance — wholesale surveillance, the evisceration of civil liberties including due process, torture, militarized police, the massive prison system, militarized drones and satellites — [to] be employed against a restive and enraged population.
The other problematic issue in regard to Trump’s removal of all aid and subsuming it under the State Department is that of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
As explained here:
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/06/trump-rubio-usaid-state-department/
“…..amid a broader downsizing of foreign assistance and with Trump and Musk reportedly contemplating killing USAID entirely or moving what remains of it under the State Department, experts worry that any ongoing U.S. overseas aid efforts will become a more overt tool of U.S. influence. Such a shift would leave lifesaving programs at risk if they don’t have an immediate perceived benefit for Trump and his administration’s desires…..”
Removing everything – including aid funding to the UN Relief Agency which has carried out a lot of aid for the Palestinians – raises the very legitimate question of how does that aspect represent a [check’s notes] “victory for humanity”?
Not to mention>>>>>>>>>>>
Continued (third attempt)
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/07/hiv-pepfar-trump-aid-freeze/
“When she saw the news on TikTok and CNN that the United States would halt funding HIV medication, Gwendolyn Dube, a 36-year-old single mother in South Africa who was diagnosed with AIDS as a child, thought to herself, “People are going to die.”
In his first week back in office, President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would exit the World Health Organization and implemented, via an executive order on “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” a 90-day pause on the disbursement of all foreign aid.
This included pausing all funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
PEPFAR, according to the State Department, has saved the lives of approximately 20 million people since it was created by George W. Bush in 2003. The $6.5 billion annual program has historically enjoyed wide bipartisan support and the praise of public health professionals and AIDS service organizations. But Republicans in Congress have been targeting it for the last several years, as part of a domestic and international campaign against the health of LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV. ”
As argued on a previous thread on this site, the Trump Administrations policy and action resembles more of an internal reset with the same hegemonic objectives which have always existed in US policy.
Certainly, the statements of Marco Rubio at the January 15th Senete foreign Relations committee left no doubts that a break with system of International Law and economic relations created at Yalta and Breton Woods is at the heart of this reset:
Quote:
“So while America too often prioritized the global order above our core national interest, other nations continued to act the way nations have always acted and always will: in what they perceive to be their best interest. And instead of folding into the post-Cold War global order, they have manipulated it to serve their interests at the expense of ours.
…
The post-war global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us. And all this has led to a moment in which we must now confront the single greatest risk of geopolitical instability and of generational global crisis in the lifetime of anyone alive and in this room today. Eight decades later, we are once again called to create a free world out of the chaos, and this will not be easy. And it will be impossible without a strong and a confident America that engages in the world, putting our core national interests once again above all else.”
Unquote.
A rejection of order in preference to chaos which goes beyond even the ‘Rules Based International order and which drew, among other responses from the grown up, this from RF FM Lavrov:
“Eighty years ago, on 4 February 1945, the leaders of the victors of World War II―the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain―opened the Yalta Conference to determine the contours of the postwar world. Despite ideological differences, they agreed to eradicate German Nazism and Japanese militarism. The agreements reached in Crimea were reaffirmed and elaborated upon at the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945.
One result of the negotiations was the creation of the United Nations and the approval of the UN Charter, which to this day remains the main source of international law. The Charter set forth goals and principles for countries’ international behavior, which are designed to ensure their peaceful coexistence and sustained development. The principle of states’ sovereign equality laid the foundation for the Yalta-Potsdam system: none may claim dominance, as all are formally equal regardless of territory, population, military capabilities, or other metrics.
…
It was at the UN that, with a key role played by the USSR, the foundation was laid for the multipolar world that is now emerging before our eyes.
…
As Russian scholars rightly note, any international institution is, above all, “a way to limit the natural egoism of states.” The UN, with its consensus-adopted Charter, is no exception.”
Not so much a prelude to some hoped for ‘golden age’ (Gilbert Doctorow) more the handing over of the baton by one faction of the US Ruling Class Oligarchy to another faction determined to pursue the same objectives using more robust methods and techniques of naked power and self-interest. Trump’s one dimensional ‘you have to lose so I can win’ approach being the perfect front for this reset.
Being prudent about what one wishes for would seem to be advisable.