JOHANNESBURG—When officials from South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) return from missions to foreign countries, there’s usually great fanfare.
Press conferences are held and strings of “successes” are announced to the nation. Officials are keen to take credit for political and economic gains.
This was not the case when President Cyril Ramaphosa’s special envoys to the United States returned from Washington last week.
In fact, the delegation, led by the ANC leader’s security adviser Sydney Mufamadi, slipped quietly into Johannesburg without a word.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Vladimir Putin at a BRICS meeting in 2021. (Courtesy of GCIS)
The team had visited the U.S. Capitol on a mission to convince American lawmakers not to push to limit trade ties with South Africa because of the ANC’s increasingly close “friendship” with the regime of President Vladimir Putin….