Pandor’s lifebelt diplomacy

At the height of the battle for the Atlantic in World War 2, when German U-boat wolf packs were dispatching Allied merchant ships with depressing ease, US propagandists began circulating a poster of a drowning American merchant mariner.

The sea is about to rise over the terror-stricken sailor’s eyes while his blazing vessel sinks in the background. “Someone talked”, says the caption.

Swap the lettering on the sailor’s cap for “South African Diplomacy 2023” and you have a fair approximation of the insensitivity emanating from Naledi Pandor’s international relations ministry.

While South Africa clings grimly to the soggy lifebelt that it is “neutral” where the Russia-Ukraine war is concerned, Pandor’s fawning welcome of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov sends that notion to the bottom faster than a lead-lined coffin.

Lavrov’s visit comes ahead of February’s scheduled exercises in which vessels of the Russian, Chinese and South African navies are due to take part.

Defending the indefensible, Pandor brushed off criticism, saying Lavrov’s visit and the forthcoming naval manoeuvres are simply “natural”.

“All countries conduct military exercises with friends worldwide,” she added.

Perhaps South Africa should expand its circle of friends so that it might conduct naval exercises with countries not otherwise engaged in a bloody invasion of a neighbour or making threatening gestures to an independent country that just wants to get on with life.

What benefit the South African Navy will garner from the exercise remains to be seen. At least there is plenty of parking space at local naval bases for visiting warships.

Meanwhile, perhaps a small but important litmus test will be if US treasury secretary Janet Yellen can, like Lavrov, also land at Waterkloof air force base, the airport that seems to play a larger role in South Africa’s international friendships than perhaps the government would like to admit.