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The South African Communist Party (SACP) has noted with great concern the decision of the President of the Republic of South Africa to appoint Mr Roelf Meyer as South Africa’s ambassador to the US. While the president has the constitutional authority to appoint ambassadors to represent the country, such power must be exercised with due regard to the social standing of the appointees relative to the history of the Republic, their record regarding the human rights history of South Africa and their standing on important national objectives that involve transformation.

The appointment of an ambassador is not a political calculation or a tactical manoeuvre undertaken solely by the individual who makes the appointment. Rather, it is a political decision and action that reflects a nation bringing its vision to life through a diplomatic relationship with another country. In doing so, it affirms the ambassador as the highest representation of its morals, values and strategic objectives.

From the SACP’s perspective, the implication is that an ambassador of significance, such as our ambassador to the US, must embody the values of transformation, equity and redress; anti-imperialism and solidarity with the oppressed; the struggle for equality and justice; national unity and progressive principles. Such an ambassador must represent the best of South Africa’s aspirations and must have no record of a political life opposed to these ideals of transformation, redress and emancipation.

Among South African citizens, Roelf Meyer is viewed as a role player in their oppression, denial of human rights and human dignity. He is an apartheid politician who ascended to the highest echelons of the apartheid cabinet not on the basis of liberation but on his alignment with the objectives of the oppression of black people in general and Africans in particular. He is inherently incapable of representing our nation’s highest ideals, as his entire orientation is antithetical to those ideals. Having been the last minister of defence of the apartheid government, Roelf Meyer commanded an army and security system that was responsible for the oppression of the people, which exacerbates his case as an unsuitable candidate to represent a free and democratic South Africa.

Placing him as the representative of a nation whose ideals contradict his own devalues the national transformation project. There is a moral duty for those who believe in progressive values to condemn this decision by the president. Any other role played by Meyer in the latter years of his political career does not cleanse him of his moral crisis emanating from his tenure as an apartheid leader. Even his role in the negotiation of the transition was skewed to the preservation of white privilege rather than the total destruction of apartheid and emancipation of the oppressed. Even his later membership of the ANC falls short of absolving him of his sins to the colonised of South Africa and indeed Africa.

Furthermore, Roelf Meyer played a critical role in convening and organising an imperialist meeting in Gdańsk whose agenda and vision are responsible for the deepening of imperialism in Africa and for the conception of the GNU as we know it.

To dismiss the significance and impact of this choice is to minimise the memory of the people’s struggle against oppression. The appropriate action is the retraction of this decision and deployment of a suitable citizen to carry out this task. We call on all progressives to join with us in making this submission to the president.

Issued by South African Communist Party