#LadyRussiagate: Why I think the American ambassador was out of order

The Simon’s Town Naval Base in Cape Town, where Lady R was docked in December of 2022 under a shroud of secrecy.

Last week, the Ambassador from the United States of America to South Africa, His Excellency Ambassador Reuben E. Brigety II, accused the South African government of selling or giving arms and ammunition to Russia in December of last year, when a Russian vessel, the Lady R, docked in Simons Town Naval base. 

According to reports, the Ambassador went as far as to say that he would bet his life on the intelligence that he had. 

I don’t – nor do I want to know what goes on in the murky world of the arms trade.

However, having been an ambassador, the one thing that I know for certain is that Ambassador Brigety stepped way over the line on this one. 

Ambassadors and diplomats should not play politics – or at least, not play them in the public domain.

Diplomats and ambassadors represent their homelands in a foreign country and serve there at the behest of the host country. So, before an ambassador can be posted to a foreign country, the host country must first accept the appointment. This is called agrément . Even after agrément has been granted and arriving in the host country, ambassadors are not allowed to perform any public duties until they have presented their credentials to the relevant head of state. These rituals exist to emphasize the sensitivity in the bi-lateral relations between diplomats and the host country.

Diplomats are appointed to firstly serve their own citizens who reside or travel to the foreign country.  They are also meant to serve as intermediaries between their own and the host country. 

If unhappiness or sensitive issues of a political nature arise, these should always be dealt through diplomatic back channels. There are many options open to diplomats and ambassadors. There are usually different desks or departments in the host country’s Department of Foreign Affairs which the diplomats can liase with and who would feed messages up the chain of command. 

As head of mission, the Ambassador can call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs or with the collaboration of the Department of Foreign Affairs any other minister. If matters remain unresolved, the Ambassador should feed the problem back to his/her own ministry back home who can then take it up with the political heads, who in turn can then take the matter further. 

This is what Ambassador Brigety should have done.

If he had truly exhausted all of his options in South Africa (which I doubt), then he should have “bounced” it back to Washington. The politicians in Washington should have spoken to our politicians and ultimately if they could not have resolved the matter, a phone call between Presidents Biden and Ramaphosa would have been appropriate. 

This division of politics and diplomacy is important. Ambassadors have enormous standing. As the official representative of their country their words carry weight and people (and the financial markets) pay attention when they say something – especially when it is controversial.

When, for example, former President Nelson Mandela visited Ireland during my tenure as ambassador, a problem arose. Prior to his visit I was part of many discussions with the relevant Irish government departments to make the necessary arrangements. These included extensive discussions around his security arrangements. An agreement was reached that Madiba’s VIP protection officers would be present, but because of Irish gun laws, not armed. Instead, the Irish Government agreed to provide a few armed protectors. 

However, on the day of Madiba’s arrival someone decided to withdraw the armed protectors. Needless to say, I was furious, as were those responsible for Madiba’s safety. I spent hours on the phone. Given that Madiba was there to attend the Special Olympics we were constantly surrounded by press, who wanted news about his visit. It would have been easy, but hugely inflammatory to have mentioned what was going on to the press (who would have loved to run with the story).

Instead, as was my duty as Ambassador, I spoke to senior officers in The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs as well as the relevant minister. Eventually the matter was resolved. Afterwards I paid a quiet visit to the Department of Foreign Affairs to express South Africa’s unhappiness about how the matter was handled. The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs apologised formally on behalf of the Irish government and asked for the message to be passed on to Madiba and the South African government. 

With that, the matter was resolved. However, if it had become a public and media issue at the time, it would have been hugely unpleasant and could have damaged relationships between our countries. 

Ambassador Brigety’s job was to discreetly convey the intelligence and concerns to the relevant role players in the South African Government.

Even if he felt that his concerns were not taken seriously, he had no right to publicly accuse his host country (South Africa) of something so political and inflammatory that it had dire implications for the country’s economic well-being. 

I saw a calculation an economist made that suggests that the cost to the South African economy through the devaluation of the Rand – largely due to Ambassador Brigety’s comments - was somewhere in the order of R1 billion. This still excluded the long-term implications of debt re-payments, reputational damage and most painfully the fall-out for ordinary people of this country. 

I know that Ambassador Brigety is a political appointment who has only been an ambassador for two years. As someone who was also a political appointment, I am well aware that you don’t always know the rules of the diplomatic game as well as the professional diplomats. This is why Ambassador Brigety should have erred on the side of caution and stayed far away from political games in the public domain. 

Knowing or having been made aware that he transgressed, the Ambassador has now apologised formally. Unlike with the Madiba incident, I’m not convinced that we have seen the end of this unpleasant story. This might damage the Algoa talks as well as other bi-lateral relations with other countries. To make matters worse, the investigation into what was loaded (if anything at all) onto the Lady R will take time, and in the meantime, our relations with Russia remain as murky and confusing as ever.