
Ramaphosa keeps mum on fallout between Trump and Musk
JOHANNESBURG - President Cyril Ramaphosa has kept mum about the fallout between United States (US) President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, despite speculation that the tech billionaire influenced Trump's misinformed view of South African policies.
Musk left his position in the Department of Government Efficiency last week, following disagreements over Trump's "big beautiful bill."
Speaking to journalists in Atteridgeville on Tuesday morning, Ramaphosa expressed optimism about the reset in relations between South Africa and the US.
Tech billionaire Musk has been critical of South Africa, mostly raising concerns about his false narrative of a white genocide.
This is a narrative that Trump also ran with and even presented to Ramaphosa during his visit to the Oval Office.
Now that Musk and Trump are seemingly no longer in each other's good books, there have been suggestions that this is a victory for Pretoria.
But Ramaphosa said all that matters is that relations with the US are starting to look good once again.
'We do confirm that our visit to the white house was a moment where South Africa set out to reset the relationship with the United States, and I do believe we have achieved that.'
Ramaphosa said there's a possibility that Trump will reconsider his decision to ditch the G20 summit in Johannesburg later this year.
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President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement on Tuesday night of a National Convention to start a National Dialogue is clearly meant to get South Africans talking to each other about solving our problems. Be careful what you wish for. At face value the concept of a national dialogue has much to recommend it. We are clearly in deep trouble, and many of our problems appear to be getting worse. The national coalition government appears to have made little progress, our economy is barely stuttering, and the number of people who are unemployed, or under-employed, continues to rise no matter how you define it. And of course, as President Cyril Ramaphosa pointed out, there is our history of a negotiated settlement that ended apartheid. A settlement that is still blamed today for some of our serious problems. All of that said, there are some important questions to ask about the wisdom of this idea. Firstly, very few leaders give up any power voluntarily. Ramaphosa, as leader of the ANC, is appearing to give the impression that the ANC will accept whatever settlement is reached through this process. But at the same time, the ANC will not, easily at least, be able to veto any settlement. This is hugely significant. For the conspiratorially minded, it may even suggest that he has accepted that the ANC will never actually have a large amount of state power again. For some, it could even suggest he has very little faith in whoever will replace him as leader of the ANC. And it certainly reminds us that he has failed to enact a new 'social compact', something he has promised since before he was even elected leader of the ANC. Different agenda However, Ramaphosa might actually have a slightly different agenda. Calls for this national dialogue have been growing for several years. For a long time people called for an 'Economic Codesa', to allow different role players in the economy to sit down and work out how to grow our economy. The person who has been the loudest in his calls for this event is former president Thabo Mbeki. It is interesting then that his foundation, and the foundations of other former presidents, have not been included in the list of people who are supposed to be guiding the process. It must be said that including Mbeki, in any form, is unlikely to be constructive. He has shown that he appears focused on protecting his own legacy. His conduct in the case of the Cradock Four families, in which he opposed an inquiry into the non-prosecution of those denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, suggests a very personal motivation. To claim that his character is ' priceless ' in the face of questions from the families about why the government he led did not prosecute those who killed their fathers and husbands appears to defy rationality. The sheer number of people involved is also interesting. Thirty-one people are included on Ramaphosa's Eminent Persons Group from the most incredibly diverse role is to guide and champion the National Dialogue. While there are business leaders and unionists (none of them are current, but they include Bobby Godsell and Bheki Ntshalintshali) there is also a rugby captain (you know the one), a mountaineer (Sibusiso Vilane), a rocket scientist, a storyteller, the chair of the National Planning Commission (Professor Tinyiko Maluleke), both Bishop Barnabas Lekganyane and Bishop Engenas Lekganyane (representing different strands of the Zion Christian Church), one Anglican Archbishop, an actor (John Kani), a football coach (Desiree Ellis) a former Constitutional Court Judge (Edwin Cameron) and Miss South Africa (Mia le Roux may in fact be there not to represent beauty pageant winners, but as a person who grew up deaf, representing people living with disabilities). 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Perhaps more importantly, no one appears to represent that most under-represented group in our politics, those who have no job and no income. This gets to the heart of one of our economic problems: organised groups that represent people who are unemployed, such as the Unemployed Peoples Movement, are often left out of the conversation and thus they have very little voice in our society. Huge omission That said, it is a huge omission. It should also be noted that the sheer size of this committee may in fact be an attempt to make sure that nothing is done, that no agreement is reached on anything. This might well be the ruse of an experienced politician, who knows that putting so many people in a room, from so many different parts of our society, will simply result in endless arguments. Technically, this is supposed to result in a bottom-up approach, where people will be given the chance to speak in different parts of the country. On paper, this is inherently democratic. In practice, it can lead to undemocratic outcomes, as the most organised and the loudest voices can overwhelm the debate. And our institutions have shown time and time again that public consultation can be ignored. For years energy regulator Nersa has held public hearings before deciding whether to increase electricity prices. Despite so many people publicly opposing tariff increases, power prices have risen by more than 653% since 2007 (inflation during that time was 129%). Economic reality The reason Nersa did that, despite hearing from so many people who opposed it, was because of economic reality. Eskom needed the money. Public consultation is very often about hearing what people want. Making decisions is about what is possible. Nersa has understood that (Eskom has often complained it has not increased prices enough) and thus had to ignore the public comments. This is why bodies like Nersa are given legal authority to make decisions. They can force people to accept the outcome. This process will have nothing like that. It is also a fallacy to think that getting people in a room together will result in them getting closer. Yes, it can happen. But it can also lead to heightened tensions. During the Codesa talks, the stakes were so incredibly high that very few people were prepared to use violence. The one group that was, the right-wing AWB, eventually used an armoured car to disrupt the talks. But their support was tiny and measured in the hundreds. There are now people in our society who publicly oppose our Constitution and have used violence in the past. One of them, Jacob Zuma, won the support of nearly 2.3 million people in last year's election. He will surely demand to be a part of this process. Incentive Also, before 1994 all of the parties involved knew there would be an election after the process. As a result there was an incentive to appear to be constructive. No such incentive will be present in this situation. Currently, one of the great divides in our politics is between parties and constituencies that support the Constitution, and parties and constituencies that don't. This process of a National Dialogue risks giving those who oppose the Constitution, in all sorts of ways, a much louder voice. Imagine, for example, the separatist voices in our society, those who want independence for the Zulu Kingdom, or those who identify as Afrikaners, or who believe the Western Cape really is different to Mzansi, working together to dominate the process. Also, considering how our politics is in the process of fracturing, creating more parties representing more diverse constituencies, the result could just be a cacophony of voices, making it difficult to come to any conclusion at all. It is true that South Africa is in a difficult, and sometimes dangerous position. As Ramaphosa himself said, in his eulogy for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in 2018: 'We must acknowledge that we are a society that is hurting, damaged by our past, numbed by our present and hesitant about our future.' He was entirely correct. The history of South Africa, so violent and oppressive, has created deep scars. And thus deep tensions. Sometimes our society can almost look like the most complicated knot of different types of string. When you pull it, you might be able to make sense of it all. Maybe.


Daily Maverick
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Building on this success, the additional 70 animals will now play a crucial role in ensuring the presence of meta-populations across the continent, presenting opportunities for future range expansion,' African Parks said. It's all about the animals! It's like African Parks is living in a bubble, completely disconnected from the odious nature of the state it has chosen as a conservation partner. But that's perhaps not surprising, given the NGO's track record elsewhere in Africa. Last month it acknowledged that some of its eco-rangers had committed human rights abuses against the Baka community in Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Republic of Congo, based on the findings of an independent investigation it had commissioned to probe the allegations. 'African Parks acknowledges that, in some incidents, human rights abuses have occurred, and we deeply regret the pain and suffering caused to the victims. There is no place for any form of abuse in the name of conservation,' it said. There may be 'no place' for this kind of abuse 'in the name of conservation'. But if the state you have chosen to host a rhino conservation project is a serial human rights abuser, there is nothing to see here, folks. The rhinos will be fine! What will grab the headlines is that this is the largest translocation of its kind. African Parks has also been involved in a previous megafauna translocation which was billed as the 'largest of its kind'. In July 2022, 263 elephants were moved from Liwonde National Park in southern Malawi to Kasungu National Park, which borders Zambia along a frontier which has no fence. African Parks has since distanced itself from this project, but it certainly claimed some of the credit at the time. As I reported from the Zambian side of the park in 2024, this misconceived translocation has transformed the landscape into one of fear and loathing for the poor rural people who live there. Human-wildlife conflict is raging there, with a mounting death toll among both people and elephants. The big critters that have just been moved to Rwanda come from the 2,000-strong herd that African Parks bought in 2023 from rhino tycoon John Hume. Largely because of the efforts of the private sector, South Africa has enough rhinos for 'rewilding' efforts elsewhere, which broadly aim to restore wildlife populations to former ranges. Rwanda, by the way, is not a former white rhino range state. It is indeed the case that much of Africa's wildlife lies within the borders of states with questionable governance or human rights records. I recently covered first-hand the translocation of South African cheetahs to Mozambique, where last year's elections were hotly disputed, sparking nationwide protests. And let's face it, the ruling Frelimo party has followed other African liberation movements down the well-trodden path of corruption and misrule. But some lines can be drawn in the sand. Mountain gorillas, for example, are only found in Rwanda and neighbouring Uganda and the DRC, and so conservation efforts for this species need to be focused in those countries, regardless of the governments in power. That is not the case with white rhinos. There are plenty of other African countries where they can be translocated to and protected. The Kigali government stands out for the sheer scale of its repression and the regional instability it has unleashed. And Kagame has an instinctive understanding of what is important to the West. The rhino project comes with the prestige he craves, adding another layer of legitimacy to his regime – which does keep the streets of Kigali clean. Kagame got 99% of the vote in Rwanda's 2024 elections and unlike in Mozambique, no one was going to raise an eyebrow about that result, let alone lead a protest in the streets.