South Africa provided a shipment of weapons to Russia in December, according to a senior U.S. diplomat who warned that such assistance could jeopardize ties with Washington.
“The arming of the Russians is extremely serious, and we do not consider this issue to be resolved,” Ambassador Rueben Brigety, the lead U.S. envoy in South Africa, told reporters Thursday.
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The weapons transfer took place in December, according to Brigety, just a week before President Joe Biden hosted a U.S.-Africa summit in Washington. The allegation gives South Africa the distinction of providing a degree of aid to Russia that even China has hesitated to proffer, a public rebuke that comes on the heels of a closed-door meeting between senior U.S. and South African officials in Washington last week.
“This is an issue of the political orientation of the ruling party of the country and what it means, as the party that is responsible for deploying senior government officials into the government of South Africa,” Brigety added, per a recording obtained by Bloomberg. “As one of our senior officials said very clearly to the delegation, how you see us will determine how we see you.”
The transfer allegedly occurred between December 6 and December 8, when a sanctioned Russian cargo ship docked at Simon’s Town Naval Base, near Cape Town.
“Evidence suggests over the past two nights there was unusual activity in the harbor with ship-mounted cranes offloading cargo from the Russian commercial vessel onto trucks,” said South African lawmaker Kobus Marais, shadow defense minister in the Democratic Alliance opposition party, in a contemporaneous demand for information from the South African ruling party. “There was also truck movement transporting containers in and out of the naval base. The trucks were protected by armed personnel. While trucks transporting containers are not uncommon it is unusual for such activities to take place at night.”
That same week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office confirmed that he would not attend the Africa summit in Washington, which took place in mid-December. On Thursday, his staff accused Brigety of violating “the spirit of cooperation and partnership that characterized” the closed-door discussions of the weapons shipment.
“There was an agreement that an investigation will be allowed to run its course, and that the US intelligence services will provide whatever evidence in their possession,” presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya said. “It is therefore disappointing that the U.S. ambassador has adopted a counter-productive public posture that undermines the understanding reached on the matter and the very positive and constructive engagements between the two delegations.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team struck a more congenial tone, even while reiterating Brigety’s allegation.
“The U.S. has serious concerns about the docking of a sanctioned Russian cargo vessel at a South African naval port in December of last year,” State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel added Thursday afternoon. “And as good partners do, we have raised those concerns directly with multiple South African officials. And I will I will leave it at that.”
Russia has scrambled to find new weapons supplies in recent months, as their failure to overthrow the Ukrainian government has forced Russian defense officials to drag outdated Soviet-era equipment to the frontlines. Their efforts have been most successful when appealing to countries such as Iran, already under intense U.S. sanctions. But South Africa has deep economic ties with the United States, courtesy of a federal law that “provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market,” known as the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA).
“I find it inconceivable that a president worth his salt would not have been briefed on this situation by now,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said Thursday during a parliamentary encounter with Ramaphosa. “The eyes of the world are on South Africa. We are facing AGOA not being renewed, and are now facing the risk of sanctions because this government will not come clean on this matter.”
Ramaphosa avoided giving a direct answer. “In time, we will be able to talk about it,” the president said. “We are all aware of the news of the [cargo ship] and that whole matter is being looked into. I want you to allow that process to continue to reach its fruition.”
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Brigety, for his part, implied that the U.S. perceives South Africa to be moving towards an unofficial alignment with Russia.
“We would like SA to [start] practicing its non-alignment policy," the U.S. ambassador said.