It was 1992 and Barbara Masekela, chief of staff to Nelson Mandela, must have been rolling her eyes.
Negotiations on ending apartheid were intensifying and Mandela was in his office with Bantu Holomisa, the military leader of the Transkei homeland.
Mandela bellowed at Masekela to get US president George HW Bush on the phone.
“Barbara opened the door with a bang, hands on hips, and said: ‘Madiba, don’t you know that Bush is asleep?’” recalls Holomisa, who is now deputy minister of defence in the GNU.
“OK, darling, when he is up, I want to speak to him,” said Mandela. “Is [British prime minister] John Major also sleeping?”
Holomisa says this was an example of Mandela deftly using his diplomatic skills even before he became president. The UN Security Council was about to vote on whether to send Organisation of African Unity monitors to South Africa as political violence escalated, and he felt he needed to speak directly to the leaders of the US, the UK and India, whose support was needed in the vote.
Another instance when Mandela’s diplomatic prowess shone through was with the establishment of the binational commission between South Africa and the US, also known as the Gore-Mbeki commission for the deputy presidents who led its work.
It laid the foundation for the trade ties that remain in place today. More than 600 US companies are invested in South Africa and bilateral trade is valued at $21bn — the strongest US partnership with any African country. The US is South Africa’s second-largest export market.
It was far from a cosy, kowtowing relationship, with tense disagreements over the war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. But back then, the South African government’s nonaligned stance really was just that. Pretoria still had the moral authority to stand its ground.
Holomisa is advocating for resuscitation of the binational commission — a sensible call, given the urgent reset required in relations. It would not look the same, given the shifts in global dynamics and domestic politics in both countries, but Holomisa argues that South Africa should try to reprise the 1990s diplomatic wizardry of Mandela and Mbeki.
“The commission played a leading role in harmonising the relationship. It had various streams. For instance, I was serving in the environmental commission. You had subcommittees that were looking into security, the economy, and so on. It all resulted in the US being our second-largest trading partner after China. There were good spin-offs.”
We should stay focused, not be diverted on some petty issues, which can be addressed in other forums
— Bantu Holomisa
In a veiled reference to the “refugee” status accorded by the US to white Afrikaners, Holomisa says: “We should stay focused, not be diverted on some petty issues, which can be addressed in other forums.”
If, for example, the US expresses concern about crime in South Africa, Holomisa suggests the government could propose collaboration to learn how the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, dealt with crime in the city.
“On the issue of Israel and Palestinians, South Africa and the US should showcase to both how different religious groups interact in their own countries,” says Holomisa.
“We were being maimed here by apartheid killing people, but we swallowed our pride at the end of the day, and sat around the table to solve our problems. So why can’t they do the same thing? But we need to facilitate such initiatives.
“The lasting solution [in the Middle East] is not going to come from us. It is going to come from those people who live there. But we, the US and South Africa, can help facilitate that.”
The strains in South Africa-US relations grew during former president Jacob Zuma’s administration, which marked a sea-change in the quality of ANC leadership.
Ties cooled significantly during the Barack Obama years, when South Africa deepened its ties with the Brics countries and criticised the West for its stance on Libya.
South Africa’s “nonaligned” stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 deepened the distrust in Washington, which was worsened when South Africa held naval exercises with Russia and China on the anniversary of the invasion in 2023. Then there was the baseless allegation by the then US ambassador Reuben Brigety that a Russian vessel, the Lady R, had loaded weapons at Simon’s Town.
President Cyril Ramaphosa met Trump this week. This is Trump’s second term in office. Ties between South Africa and the US during his first term were practically nonexistent, with the pair of leaders meeting only once — and that was on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
This was Ramaphosa’s first visit to the White House and will go down either as a reset towards a more healthy partnership or as yet another nail in the coffin of bilateral relations.
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