South Africa can't go back to apartheid ways
In this country – and many others – immgrants are sometimes regarded as 'The Other' and as subhuman.
Quite correctly, legal and constitutional experts, as well as civil society activists in the US, are voicing their concern that President Donald Trump is moving towards an authoritarian state, following his deployment of soldiers from the National Guard to help quell protests in Los Angeles.
The Angelenos took to the street in reaction to heavy-handed raids on immigrants by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Today, on our pages, Claudia Pizzocri – a local immigration and citizenship lawyer – warns the same thing is already happening in South Africa under the 'Operation New Broom' campaign by the Department of Home Affairs.
She says that, barely two days after the campaign launched late last month, more than 50 individuals, including children, pregnant women and asylum seekers, were rounded up during an early-morning raid at the Plastic View informal settlement in Tshwane.
The people were treated in a dehumanising manner, reminiscent of the apartheid-era crackdowns on dissent.
ALSO READ: Home Affairs launches Operation New Broom to tackle illegal immigration
At the same time, lawyers suing the anti-immigrant movement, Operation Dudula, claim their actions against alleged illegal immigrants are not only unlawful, but they get tacit support from the police and authorities.
Immigration is one of the hottest global topics at the moment as hordes of people seek to move across the world – either avoiding persecution or merely looking for a better life.
Included in this group are South African whites who are being offered asylum in the US because they are allegedly facing a genocide.
In this country – and many others – the newcomers are regarded as 'The Other' and as subhuman, which makes them all that easier to abuse and deprive of their basic human rights.
In a country whose democracy rose out of the ashes of oppression, we cannot allow a similar culture of brutality to take root again.
NOW READ: NGOs say foreigners in SA told to return to their countries when opening cases against Operation Dudula
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Daily Maverick
17 minutes ago
- Daily Maverick
UN nuclear watchdog says Iran in breach of obligations, Iran announces counter-measures
The U.N. nuclear watchdog's board of governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations on Thursday and Tehran announced counter-measures, as an Iranian official said a "friendly country" had warned it of a potential Israeli attack. U.S. and Iranian officials will hold a sixth round of talks on Tehran's accelerating uranium enrichment programme in Oman on Sunday, the Omani foreign minister said on Thursday. But security fears have risen since U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday American personnel were being moved out of the region because 'it could be a dangerous place' and that Tehran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if the nuclear talks do not progress, and in an interview released on Wednesday said he had become less confident that Tehran would agree to stop enriching uranium. The Islamic Republic wants a lifting of the U.S. sanctions imposed on the country since 2018. The International Atomic Energy Agency's policy-making Board of Governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, raising the prospect of reporting it to the U.N. Security Council. The step is the culmination of several stand-offs between the Vienna-based IAEA and Iran since Trump pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in 2018 during his first term, after which that accord unravelled. An IAEA official said Iran had responded by informing the nuclear watchdog that it plans to open a new uranium enrichment facility. After the IAEA decision, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Tehran's actions undermine the global Non-Proliferation Treaty and posed an imminent threat to regional and international security and stability. Iran is a signatory to the NPT while Israel is not and is believed to have the Middle East's sole nuclear arsenal. MARKET REACTION Markets absorbed the developments in a volatile Middle East. Oil prices eased on Thursday as the market assessed the situation, having surged more than 4% on Wednesday to their highest since early April. But shares in European airlines, travel companies and hotel chains were among the biggest fallers in morning trade as investors worried the heightened tensions would knock demand for travel and higher oil prices would add to costs. 'Clearly it is Iran that is at the centre of this and the possibility that you see a strike from the U.S. or Israel,' said Paul McNamara, a director of emerging market debt for investment firm GAM. 'There is a lot of scope for things to get a whole lot worse if we do see a military strike and a sustained attack.' Iran's response to the IAEA resolution was among several countermeasures being taken, Iranian state TV said. The IAEA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tehran had given no further details on the planned new enrichment sites, such as its location to enable monitoring by U.N. nuclear inspectors. Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for Iran's atomic energy organisation, told state TV that Tehran had informed the IAEA of two countermeasures including 'the upgrading of centrifuges in Fordow (enrichment plant) from first to sixth generation, which will significantly boost the production of enriched uranium'. Enrichment can be used to produce uranium for reactor fuel or, at higher levels of refinement, for atomic bombs. Iran says its nuclear energy programme is only for peaceful purposes. Reiterating Iran's stance that it will not abandon the right to enrichment as an NPT member, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that rising Middle East tensions served to 'influence Tehran to change its position about its nuclear rights'. 'POTENTIAL ISRAELI STRIKE' The Iranian official said a 'friendly' country had alerted Tehran to a potential strike on its nuclear sites by arch-adversary Israel and reiterated that the Islamic Republic would not abandon its commitment to enrichment. 'We don't want tensions and prefer diplomacy to resolve the (nuclear) issue, but our armed forces are fully ready to respond to any military strike,' the official said. Iranian state media reported that Iran's military had begun drills earlier than planned to focus on 'enemy movements'. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad head David Barnea will travel to Oman to meet U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff ahead of the U.S.-Iranian talks in another bid to clarify Israel's position, Israeli media reported on Thursday. The decision by Trump to remove some personnel from the region comes at a brittle and highly sensitive juncture in the oil-producing Middle East, where security has already been destabilised by the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas that began in October 2023. Oil prices initially rose after Trump's announcement but later eased. Foreign energy companies were continuing their operations as usual, a senior Iraqi official overseeing operations in southern oilfields told Reuters on Thursday. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad advised American citizens on Thursday against travelling to Iraq, Iran's western neighbour. Foreign energy firms continue to operate normally in Iraq, a senior Iraqi official told Reuters. Bahrain's state oil firm Bapco Energies is monitoring the situation in the region and its operations are unaffected, it said on Thursday, after dependents of U.S. military personnel were advised to leave the country because of regional tensions.
Daily Maverick
19 minutes ago
- Daily Maverick
Musk wants South African rocket launch site and rare earths
New developments since the Oval Office spectacle cast new light on the potential implications for South Africa's critical minerals, space ambitions, and ongoing trade negotiations. Three weeks ago, behind closed doors at the White House, South African-born billionaire Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump found common ground in a much friendlier, extended lunch meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa, which followed an earlier public spat in the Oval Office. While that initial encounter set the stage, a flurry of developments since – including a public and very messy fallout between Trump and Musk – has cast new light on the potential implications for South Africa's critical minerals, space ambitions, and ongoing trade negotiations. As previously reported for Business Day, both Musk and Trump talked to the South Africans about South Africa's rare earths and extremely high tariffs on imported cars. Rare earths are used in magnets in just about every hi-tech gadget on Earth, and especially in electric vehicles (EVs). 'You guys are the largest economy on the continent… and you have minerals we need,' Trump said, according to DA leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, who was in the room. Both Musk and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were interested in South Africa's critical minerals because of the shortage of rare earths used, especially in magnets. Magnets are vital in several of Musk's multibillion-dollar businesses, and he takes an active interest in the location of mines capable of providing the rare earths they require. Though Trump did most of the talking and Musk was almost as reticent in the closed-door lunch meeting as in the Oval Office, both had rare earths and their use in magnets on their minds. At the time, China, the world's main supplier of rare earths for magnets, had frozen exports of both the minerals and the magnets to the US. There have been a few key developments since the White House meeting. This week, China and the US agreed that China's magnet and rare earths exports to the US will resume. The magnet and rare earths freeze was a significant threat to the US, and several product lines had to suspend production in the US, Japan and Europe. You could say Musk got to experience what it felt like to be Ramaphosa or Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. South Africa has a valuable rare earths mine, Steenkampskraal, about 380km north of Cape Town, but its first significant output will not be available until some time next year (2025). Musk also said he was interested in launching SpaceX rockets from the Denel Overberg rocket test site at Arniston, outside Cape Town. Two space experts said the value of the Arniston launch site to Musk is to launch satellites that will orbit over the South Pole, as well as Starlink low-Earth orbit satellites to provide broadband to consumers. In the White House meeting, Musk did not mention Starlink, which has been in the news in South Africa lately, apparently because the South African government has already set up a process to review its Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policy as it affects companies like Starlink. This week, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi confirmed that the decision will depend on a review process by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, which he first raised in September 2024. The review was announced last month, but no outcome of that process is expected soon. In the three weeks since the White House meeting, Trump and Musk have exchanged extremely harsh words in a fallout that echoed around the world. You could say Musk got to experience what it felt like to be Ramaphosa or Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, though Musk, at least, brought it on himself. Musk broke with Trump by announcing that he 'couldn't stand it anymore', called Trump's omnibus budget bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill – its official title – a 'disgusting abomination', an 'outrageous, pork-filled' spending bill that will 'massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt'. Then Musk alleged that Trump is implicated in the scandal around indicted alleged paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in prison before his trial. Oops. More directly relevant since the White House meeting is the still uncertain status of US-South Africa trade talks. Then on Tuesday Musk dialled it back with a reconciliatory phone call. Clearly he discovered being out in the cold was no fun. 'I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,' he messaged. 'They went too far.' Then the two men spoke on the phone. We'll see where that goes. Musk apologised, but didn't say which part was 'too far' – the bill or the hint at a connection to an accused paedophilia celebrity? Musk's objection to the bill is real. Musk believed most fervently in that part of the Maga agenda that would cut America's mushrooming debt. With this bill, that goal has been abandoned and may be hard to resurrect. But what does the Trump-Musk feud mean for South Africa's trade negotiations, particularly in light of these recent developments? More directly relevant since the White House meeting is the still uncertain status of US-South Africa trade talks. Ramaphosa has announced that he will meet Trump this weekend in Canada on the sidelines of the G7 meeting. However, Trump is running the policy for South Africa directly from the White House, and sources in the State Department said nothing from the White House meeting has trickled down to them to indicate that negotiations are under way. Trump has successfully imposed a total blackout on any leaks about what happened behind closed doors. Neither Secretary of State Marco Rubio nor anyone from his department was in the meeting. The three officials who did discuss a new trade deal with the South African delegation are located elsewhere in the administration, and Trump has not yet nominated an Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, who normally leads US Africa policy. Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative, which is a cabinet position, met the South African ministers in Washington for substantive talks. And at the White House, Lutnick was active in discussing future deals. Trump, who has taken a special interest in the auto sector, raised the question of auto tariffs and directed Lutnick to follow up in his talks with South African Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau. Perhaps the most important implementer of US Africa policy at present, Massad Boulos, who is a senior adviser to the US president, was in the meeting too. The father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, the president's youngest daughter, Boulos emigrated to Texas from Lebanon as a teenager, and spent his career in Nigeria as CEO of a trucking and heavy machinery dealership. He was instrumental in the Trump campaign for Arab-American votes in the election in 2024. His first appointment was as Arab and Middle Eastern adviser to the president, a position he still holds. Boulos, whom Trump singled out in the Oval Office meeting, has been driving US policy in eastern DRC peace talks, and had meetings with the Nigerian president, among others, since taking office. The Denel Overberg test site near Arniston, the brainchild of the Aerospace Systems Research Institute led by Professor Michael Brooks at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, has successfully launched several suborbital South African rockets to nearly 18km, some using South African-made engines. Its last launches used a new six-storey gantry, and it is currently on track to be capable of launching satellites into orbit in 2028. A SpaceX investment could significantly accelerate this progress. More than 30 significant space companies and start-ups are based in South Africa. They collaborate with the South African National Space Agency. Sources in Washington are reluctant to predict whether the optimism of Ramaphosa and his delegation about a trade deal will be justified. South Africa is currently working with international space sector partners in the US, Europe and China. The US and South Africa are partnered on a project to build a new deep-space ground station in Matjiesfontein in the Western Cape. It will support communications for future US Artemis missions to the moon and Mars. In August 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping signed two agreements with South Africa on cooperation in space projects. One focused on crewed spaceflight, and the other included South Africa in the team for the planned Chinese-Russian International Lunar Research Station. South Africa is also working with the European Space Agency. The trade deal South Africa offered the US included a duty-free quota of 40,000 US vehicles a year for the auto sector and duty-free access for automotive components sourced from South Africa for automotive production in the US. South Africa agreed to buy LNG gas from the US for 10 years, costing about $1.2-billion in trade per annum, or $9-billion to $12-billion over 10 years. Sources in Washington are reluctant to predict whether the optimism of Ramaphosa and his delegation about a trade deal will be justified. Trump was aiming for 90 trade deals with foreign countries in 90 days. That was 70 days ago, and only one outline deal, with the UK, has been announced. More than any president in recent history, the final decision will depend almost entirely on how this president feels about it at the time. DM
Daily Maverick
19 minutes ago
- Daily Maverick
Democracies must hang together to temper autocratic Donald Trump
While troops are in American cities to suppress voices of dissent for his unlawful policies, Donald Trump is having a multimillion-dollar military spectacle at public expense to honour his birthday. What's actually on parade are his autocratic aspirations, a clear and present danger to democracy. What in the world can be done? Better to ask – what can the world do? Fellow liberal democracies should not stand by idly while the country that was once the standard-bearer for their movement falls into tyranny. When is intervention appropriate, and how to go about it? Keeping a close watch while the Americans try to get themselves sorted is key. The courts, one of the few remaining guardrails, may hold. But the Supreme Court is compromised by a commanding majority installed by Trump. Already, they have put him above the law by immunising the President from legal consequence, even if he assassinates political rivals. That, combined with Trump's abuse of his authority to issue pardons, is toxic. His henchmen can commit crimes on his behalf, confident they will get off scot-free. The last bulwark is the street. Pro-democracy Americans are gathering across the United States and the world to hold the line. There's every reason to believe that Trump is an aberration that won't persist. Why? His unpopular policies and abuses will come to a screeching halt with next year's midterm elections. This runs counter to Trump's false narrative. He would have us believe that his 2020 defeat was a fraud. His return to power affirms that and provides some supposed mandate. The facts prove otherwise. In 2016, he lost the popular vote by millions but managed to prevail through a peculiarity of the process. In 2020, he lost by millions more in what was a thumping. In 2024, he did not get a majority, only a plurality – below 50% of the votes cast. His thin win was because some who turned him out in 2020 decided to sit it out. Now, they and many more are rising up. Free and fair elections will end this man who would-be king's reign. He'll do everything he can to stop that. But if Trump carries out a coup openly, that will tarnish the brand. He'll try to maintain appearances and get what he wants by stealth. He's sure to cheat like he does at golf, his taxes or on his wives. Already, he has dismantled the country's cybersecurity, enabling foreign US adversaries to hack the vote. If control of Congress is close, he's likely to press state officials to sneak some votes for his candidates. If pressed by overwhelming defeat, he'll resort to robbing the voters. Why wouldn't he repeat his playbook from 2020, falsely claiming he is the victim of election fraud? This time, he's learnt from his previous failure and is far better prepared to overturn the results. Whatever happens, democracies around the globe must demand free and fair elections in the US and deliver consequences if Trump overturns the constitution to hold on to power. Since his regime would no longer be legitimate, other governments should refuse to recognise it, its ambassadors and envoys. Being clear now about that is crucial, and may deter a Trump tyranny. If this cancer of the body politic turns malignant, South Africa and sister democracies have their work cut out for them. Turning Trump's 'America First' into America isolated would require a unified effort to ban trade and travel. If opposition leaders are forced to flee, they should be welcomed. It is not unimaginable that if the Obamas and others have to seek shelter under such circumstances, they might ask – and should receive – recognition as the government in exile. Other pressure, too, can be brought from unexpected places. The American-born Pope may see fit to excommunicate many of Trump's enablers on the Supreme Court, five of six justices who are Catholic. Oh, and add Vice-President JD Vance to this papal ban. The theological grounds? Violation of their solemn oath to protect and defend the constitution. God isn't the only judge of their sacrilege. Taken together, these would leave nothing but a burnt Taco, unpalatable to even Trump's most fervent followers, accustomed to consuming whatever detritus he drops. Tyrant Trump and his minions would not long survive the world's resounding rejection. Such drastic treatment would be painful for a time, but far less damaging than allowing this malignancy to metastasise into the bones of America and beyond. Trump's clear and present danger to democracy must now be met with the promise of such resolve. This will help ensure the free and fair elections necessary to restore what was once a trusted friend and ally. With autocracy on the rise globally, sister democracies must come together on this. As Benjamin Franklin encouraged his fellow patriots in their struggle against tyranny and for democracy, 'We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.' DM
