SA Minister urges US to resolve its deep divisions

International Relations & Co-operation Minister Ronald Lamola has condemned the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump and urged Americans ‘not to solve their problems through the barrel of a gun’. ‘They must solve it through the barrel of the pen, in the ballot box … We hope there will be peace,’ Lamola said in an address to the Chatham House think tank in London last week. The Daily Maverick reports that Lamola was asked how his government viewed the prospect of a second Trump presidency. He said SA would engage with whoever Americans voted for. Lamola noted that Pretoria had already sent a delegation to engage with both Republicans and Democrats and would continue to engage with US lawmakers to ensure SA continued to participate in Agoa – the African Growth and Opportunity Act. He described as ‘very fruitful’ a first meeting earlier in the day with the new Labour Party government’s foreign secretary David Lammy, who was ‘very clear that our relations should not be based on the fact that we are a former British colony, but will be based on an equally beneficial relationship’. He and Lammy had agreed on a number of issues, including the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, respect for international law there and in particular on the need for humanitarian aid. Lamola said in reply to another question that SA supported Zimbabwe’s attempt to rejoin the Commonwealth, which it left about 20 years ago to pre-empt expulsion. ‘We have always been against the sanctions against Zimbabwe because we have always believed that they harm us the same way they harm Zimbabwe,’ he said, referring to the Zimbabwean refugees who fled economic hardship for SA.

The US ambassador to SA, Reuben Brigety, has also condemned the assassination attempt, reiterating President Joe Biden's call to ‘turn down the temperature’ during the election season. ‘We condemn it categorically, and we mourn for those who were killed and injured in that assault. President Biden gave an address to the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday, in which he said that this kind of violence has no place in America or any violence, period. And, of course, he is right,’ Brigety told News24. Asked whether he thought the incident would bolster Trump's election campaign, Brigety said: ‘As a sitting ambassador, I do not engage in partisan political discussions. I do not know what the American people are going to say. I know that the American people are going to have their say, and I know, as in our democracy and every other democracy, when there are free and fair elections, the people are right, by definition. So, we will see.’