We are very far from any invasions – Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has a tense relationship with US president Donald Trump over the claims of a “white genocide” in SA, says he’s not worried about any possible invasion by the US. This comes after the US conducted a military strike against Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia, and flew them to the US to be prosecuted for “narco-terrorism” and other charges. The SA government has called on the UN Security Council to urgently address the US’s actions.

Speaking on the sidelines of the SACP’s commemoration of Joe Slovo’s death on Tuesday, Ramaphosa dismissed journalists’ questions about fears of any possible invasion by the US. “No, I’m not worried about an invasion of South Africa, not at all,” he said. “I think we are very far from anything like that.

In the end, theUnited Statesis an important country in the world and we have always believed that any differences with whichever country, including the United States, need to be discussed.” Ramaphosa added that SA hoped that the “collective wisdom” of the Security Council and the United Nations would bring forward solutions to the US’s actions in Venezuela. “What has happened now, basically, is giving carte blanche to anyone to mount an invasion on any country. And, clearly, that cannot be something that we are all pleased with,” Ramaphosa said.

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Meanwhile, the DA condemned the appeal by thedepartment of international relations and cooperation (Dirco) to the Security Council to convene and intervene in the US’s capture and prosecution of Maduro, accusing the ANC of misusing foreign policy for party political interests. DA spokesperson on international relations Ryan Smith said Dirco’s appeal smacked of “hypocrisy and contradiction”, as it failed to take a similar stance against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “In the context of the situation in Venezuela, the ANC has again decided to pursue its entrenched party-political interests in our foreign policy by referring the US to the [Security Council] when no such appeal for intervention was made when Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and was found guilty of human rights abuses for child trafficking,” said Smith. However, Ramaphosa dismissed the DA’s claims of hypocrisy, saying it was selectively choosing which events to remember.

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