Peace mission exposes weak foreign policy management, says Rise Mzansi

Rise Mzansi has criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Ukraine/Russia “peace mission” as an “unmitigated disaster that will yield nothing”.

The party’s national leader Songezo Zibi dismissed the trip as a “pricey, disorganised and ill-informed public relations exercise”.

“According to the Lusaka Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented a list of reasons why he believed many of the proposals put forward by the African leaders were misguided,” said Zibi.

He added that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky also told the delegation that their intervention was ill-timed as Ukraine had just begun its counter-offensive to expel the Russian army.

“Wartime peace negotiations usually succeed when both sides no longer see a path to military victory. This is clearly not the case here as both Ukraine and Russia remain determined to fight,” he said.

Zibi said successful peace efforts usually have the support of countries that support either of the two warring countries or have the strongest leverage.

“In this case, the peace mission needed to have the strong support of the US and China, both of whom have the ear of Ukraine and Russia respectively. South Africa is involved in a diplomatic disagreement with the US, so clearly its support was not secured,” he said.

The Rise Mzansi leader said there was also no word from the Chinese foreign ministry, though both will diplomatically say polite things if asked to comment by the media.

“President Ramaphosa spoke of ‘confidence-building measures’ in his remarks, but this is also strange. Confidence-building is done behind closed doors by capable emissaries before heads of state get involved,” he said.

Zibi said South Africa's government did not possess standard tradecraft for this situation. “Alternatively, President Ramaphosa did not accept sound advice given. If anything, it has demonstrated how weak our foreign policy management has become,” he said.

Zibi said the country’s national interests and international reputation are not an internship programme for incompetent politicians, adding that we cannot wait for them to eventually learn at a huge cost to the nation.

“Besides, President Ramaphosa has operated at senior political level for decades. If he still does not know how to conduct foreign relations properly, he will never know. This is one more reason we need a new government in 2024, but not just any government,” he said.

Zibi said the country needs a government that understands how to strategically position South Africa to navigate complex international affairs to advance the interests of the South African people.

“Rise Mzansi’s people’s manifesto process has now begun. In the coming weeks we will be hosting a public event to discuss approaches to foreign policy.

“South Africa needs capable people to help develop effective solutions to many of the country’s problems, and a weak foreign policy has come to the fore as one of our most prominent national security risks.”

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