South Africa vows not to bend to US pressure after G20 snub

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

By Nellie Peyton

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 4 (Reuters) – South Africa will not bow to U.S. pressure to change its policies on race, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said on Thursday, after Washington confirmed that Pretoria would be excluded from the G20 under its presidency.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement on Wednesday accusing South Africa’s government of “racism” against its white citizens, an allegation that President Donald Trump has also made and which has been widely discredited.

He said South Africa would not be invited to participate in G20 meetings while the United States leads the forum for the next year.

“Secretary Rubio, the world is watching. It is growing weary of double standards,” Lamola wrote in an open letter to Rubio.

“We do not seek your approval for our path.”

It was one of South Africa’s strongest responses yet to an onslaught of U.S. criticism this year, although Lamola underlined that he remained open to dialogue.

TRUMP’S COMMENTS HAVE ERODED US, SOUTH AFRICA TIES

Relations between Washington and Pretoria have reached a low in recent months as Trump has repeatedly made false claims about a “white genocide” in South Africa and criticized the country for its policies aimed at addressing racial inequality.

White people make up only about 7% of South Africa’s population but still hold the vast majority of land and wealth three decades after the end of apartheid, an explicitly racist system of white minority rule.

The government now has policies that reward companies for hiring and promoting Black people, in an attempt to address the imbalance. It also passed a law this year allowing the state to expropriate land in certain circumstances, although no white land has been “seized” as Trump claims.

“Our policies of redress are not a political invention. They are the fulfilment of a promise made to all South Africans as we emerged from the darkness of apartheid,” Lamola wrote.

A spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responded to Rubio’s statement earlier on social media, saying that South Africa would take a break from the G20 while the U.S. is at the helm.

“About this time next year, the UK will be taking over the G20 presidency. We will be able to engage meaningfully and substantively over what really matters to the rest of the world,” said Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.

“For now, we will take a commercial break until we resume normal programming,” he wrote.

(Reporting by Nellie Peyton and Alexander Winning; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)