Indiana Johannes and Raiders of the Lost ANC PART II - Iran, China, Russia, SA, and USA Policy

Regarding the disintegrating US-South African relationship.. a tale in how not to poke the bear, or tickle the lion’s belly. Or kick elephant dung…

Indiana Johannes and Raiders of the Lost African National Congress party

Part II

The disintegrating US-South African relationship.. a tale in how not to poke the bear, or tickle the lion’s belly. Or kick elephant dung…

An investigative essay by Justine Isernhinke, Fellow and Head of Geopolitics and UAP Research, The Malone Institute

Iran and South Africa

My friend, Mark Oppenheimer, wrote a fantastic piece last week about the ANC's failed moral code. Since 1994, the ANC has asserted its moral authority as the basis for both South Africa’s standing in the world and the reason for its International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel.

There is a reasonable belief that Iran paid South Africa to launch the ICJ case back in 2023, following the Hamas invasion of Israel. Iran was invited to the BRICS naval exercises taking place a few days before Iran unleashed large-scale attacks on its own citizens protesting the regime. The ANC has been deathly silent on that atrocity.

As Mark writes:

The ANC has, in recent years, placed great emphasis on its supposed moral authority in international affairs, most notably in its decision to bring a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. Whatever one’s view of that litigation, it was explicitly framed as a principled stand against alleged violations of international law and the killing of civilians. Moral consistency would demand that the same concern be shown for civilians whether in the Middle East or anywhere else.

Yet that consistency is absent.

The contrast invites an uncomfortable question: why does the ANC speak loudly in some cases and fall silent in others? One explanation is geopolitical convenience rather than moral conviction. Iran has sought to internationalise its conflict with Israel and to marshal political pressure through sympathetic states in the Global South. South Africa, in turn, appears willing to trade its moral capital, painstakingly accumulated through decades of genuine struggle, for diplomatic favour and strategic alignment.

If this is so, then the invocation of human rights and international law becomes a rhetorical instrument rather than a guiding principle.

~Mark Oppenheimer Politicide in Iran

But, like many things, the ANC didn’t invent the hypocrisy of the “oppressed”. “The philosopher Bertrand Russell warned in a 1943 essay titled The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed of a growing tendency to see victimhood not just as a reason for sympathy, but as a badge of moral superiority. Since then, the trend has only accelerated. Victimhood has become a path to prestige and power. And once embarked upon, it seems it is almost impossible to surrender.

The ANC cozied up to Hamas, allowing several flights of hundreds of military-age Palestinian men into South Africa - showcasing to the world that the ANC is now firmly in the jihadi camp. Similar to how leftist Blue-led cities and states in the US sheltered mass migrations of Somalis and the recent election of a foreign-born global jihadist in New York, the ANC, as left as left can go, has allied with the Islamists in direct conflict with US Foreign Policy. The Gift of the Givers is an Islamic organization that has somehow entrenched itself and exercises undue influence in the ANC government’s foreign policy.

It was in this vein that the ANC invited the BRICS nations - including Russia and Iran - to play “Battleships” in Simon’s Town. Simon's Town (Afrikaans: Simonstad), sometimes spelled Simonstown, is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa, and is home to Naval Base Simon's Town, the South African Navy's largest base

Birds of a Feather

We know a man by the company he keeps, and this is slowly becoming a cornerstone of Trump’s foreign policy,

Secretary Rubio has been very upfront about America’s foreign policy: “No more taxpayer dollars for hostile nations that hate America. If you vote against us at the UN, chant ‘Death to America,’ or fund anti-American NGOs, you’re cut off. Period.” America is well aware of the stances that SA President Cyril Ramaphosa has taken against US interests.

Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is a South African businessman and politician serving as the president of South Africa since 2018. A former anti-apartheid activist and trade union leader, Ramaphosa is also the president of the African National Congress (ANC).

Ramaphosa rose to national prominence as secretary general of South Africa’s biggest and most powerful trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers.

In January this year, South Africa invited Russia, China and Iran, amongst others, to participate in Will for Peace military exercise.

Following official US objections, the renewal of AGOA (the trade-free regime) and Iranian violence, the South African government construed this farcical plot, reminiscent of Fawlty Towers, where they apparently told Iran to leave, but the South African Navy didn’t relay the message to Iranian officials. Instead of court-martials, we now have yet another board of inquiry looking into it, which we can rest assured will go nowhere and everyone will have forgotten about it in a month’s time. President Ramaphosa even had the gall to blame China for inviting the wrong participants!

China’s footprint, more like a bootprint, is on the necks of every African nation. This started in the 1990s under the “watchful eye” of Clinton and has continued unabated for over 30 years. Ostensibly, in return for national resources, China builds roads, bridges, dams, and ports. But that is a convenient simplification that bypasses the reality on the ground. China has hundreds of thousands of its nationals now living in Africa. They have tied African governments into debt-for-infrastructure deals, which are synonymous with the Economic Hitman book - they lend the money to African governments to build the infrastructure that the Chinese build, with imported Chinese labor, and then take control and ownership of the infrastructure when the governments fail to pay back their debt.

At the same time, China is shoring up its military presence in Africa. In South Africa, China has been expanding the De Brug military base for an unclear purpose. The De Brug military base is located outside Bloemfontein and hosts a mobilization center for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to prepare soldiers and coordinate projects. The South African Department of Defence confirmed Chinese involvement but refused to elaborate. The Democratic Alliance Party, which is part of the Government for National Unity with the ANC, voiced its alarm over the “serious breaches of defense protocol, oversight and sovereignty stemming from clandestine Chinese military involvement in SANDF operations, including the secretive Project Zingisa at De Brug and the opaque RMB 100 million (ZAR 260 million) military aid agreement signed in Beijing in 2024”, signed without parliamentary consultation

To compound matters, Chinese technicians are working on frigates and submarines supplied by European manufacturers. The DA stressed openly that these vessels were subject to confidentiality and intellectual property agreements, and the Chinese actions could potentially violate those agreements.

The SA Department of Defense had received a budget allocation of R57.1 billion for the 2025/26 financial year. However, R36.7 billion — roughly 64% — was set aside for the payment of salaries for all employed by the department. Not much left for shoring up our defenses at all.

To give this context, South Africa has more ministers (75) than the US, Germany, Japan and UK combined. The way to financial success in South Africa is to work for the government. The benefits of being a government official has literally created a whole new class - the Political Class. The President recently approved a 3.8% increase in their salaries. There are two million civil servants in South Africa, and their salaries cost the country 17% of the GDP. The head of the Road Accident Fund earns millions and his position is a minor bureaucrat while the actual fund itself is depleted. Malema, of “Kill the Boer” fame, is worth something between $9M to $38M.

A few months ago, preceding BRICS, another Fawlty Towers plot came to light. Only this time, it affected 17 young men who had bought into a “Bait and Switch” scheme.

The daughter of Former President Jacob Zuma conned 17 South African men to fly to Russia for “bodyguard training” which morphed into being sent to the frontline of the war with Ukraine.

“All the time my boy is crying when he’s talking. All the time he’s crying because of the situation,“ the father of the recruited young man shared. Relatives say the recruits are being forced to dig trenches and have gone weeks without water, adequate food, or medical care.

The US made it abundantly clear that it does not look favorably upon South Africa’s support of Russia back when South Africa allowed a Russian frigate to dock in Simons Town and pick up an “unidentified load”- which the US is certain were weapons.

The great irony in these recent “naval exercises” is that South Africa literally cannot rub two coins - or ships - together. The navy has been underfunded by the ANC Government for so many years that South Africa does not have a functioning submarine and only has two naval vessels.

“The current state of the South African Navy positions it as neither a blue, green, nor brown navy. For seven years now, the four frigates—SAS Amatola, SAS Isandlwana, SAS Spioenkop, and SAS Mendi—have been virtually non-operational.”

My friend Rory hit the proverbial nail on the head with this comment on X:

The funny part is that days ago the President of South Africa literally admitted that they only provided the water!

The sad truth is that the SA Navy and SA Defense Force are being defunded to placate and enable the drug cartels to run freely in and out of this country.

Chief of the South African Navy, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese, warns that government leaders are unpatriotic and selling out to criminals, by turning a blind eye to maritime crime and endangering the Navy and South African National Defense Force (SANDF), while pushing for privatization:

“As the Navy, we rejected this sellout and unpatriotic decision. Attempts have been made by certain government departments to bring a foreign company to come patrol our waters. The unpatriotic and what appears to be a sellout posture of defunding the SA Navy and the SANDF in general…these consistent underfunding and incapacitating of the South African Navy and the defence force in general is to ensure the success of the operations that undermine our nation…

“ often find myself questioning whether those responsible… may be directly or indirectly influenced by these drug cartels, illegal traders, maritime criminals, and human traffickers…

Whether the people behind what I would like to call nonsense, if they are not busy with a mission to privatize the SA Navy and the SANDF…

.. private security is a lucrative business in our country and it is replacing the state security machinery.

Should the SA Navy’s roles fall into private hands… the same government that today tells us there is no money to fund the Navy will use government reserves to fund those private security forces.”

One doesn’t need to be an admiral to recognize that the ANC-led government is deliberately crippling the South African Navy and the SANDF. However, the concerning accusation is that the Admiral implies that the ANC are in bed with international drug cartels who have established themselves in South Africa and need unfettered access across our borders.

The United States is well aware of the challenges in maritime security in Africa. In December, there was a hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on on Africa and Global Health Policy titled: MARITIME SECURITY IN AFRICA: ASSESSING THREATS TO U.S. COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY AND NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS.

The US under President Trump is finally addressing the increasing security threats in Africa from China, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) controlling over 70 African ports, critical resources, and fish stocks. The US has acknowledged the need to take action to thwart and remove CCP (Chinese Communist Party) influence in the region and in the oceans surrounding the continent. The US is therefore launching a 2026 Port Prosperity Partnership that will connect US and African ports to improve security.

Strategic African ports are increasingly targeted by our adversaries seeking military and commercial advantages. These nations promote state-owned and affiliated companies, including untrusted port technologies, allowing them access to sensitive information and the ability to disrupt foreign trade. Such influence undermines host nations’ sovereignty over their infrastructure and fosters corruption.

For the United States, this creates economic and national security risks. President Trump’s unprecedented successes in rebalancing our trade relationships globally and Secretary Rubio’s emphasis on advancing U.S. business abroad have opened new opportunities across Africa. Through diplomatic engagement and targeted programs, the Department advocates for transparent port governance and exposes predatory lending. These actions reduce our adversaries influence in the transportation sector.

~Mr. Marco Sylvester Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Affairs (TRA) Department of State

Most notably the US now wants to be the preferred partner to African nations.

For years, successive Administrations ignored the rise of China in Africa. With one foot in South Africa and one in America, I personally understand what may have led to this withdrawal of attention away from the continent. But it left many African governments vulnerable/open/eager to receive Chinese economic incentives in return for surrendering sovereignty over resources and production, and yielding their foreign policy all of which has resulted in China having a “ring of fire” consisting of ports all over Africa and the world. This is likely one of the main drivers in much of President Trump’s aggressive foreign policy - gaining control back of the Panama Canal, eliminating CCP control over Venezuela as well as removing one of their sources of oil, taking over Greenland and, soon, dismantling the pro-China regime in Iran.

If anything, the ANC leadership is watching its “allies” Hamas and Venezuela fall away or, like Cuba and Iran, next on the chopping block. Who will be left for Cyril to have tea with once Trump is done? Or will Trump find a new ally in Southern Africa like Zimbabwe whose leaders, as decadent as they are, are smart enough to read the tea leaves?

This all leads us into the very latest debacle in the ongoing saga of US-South African “circling the drain” diplomatic relations:

Watching a train crash in slow motion

In the past week, the US Department of Justice has filed a civil forfeiture action to seize two pieces of military training equipment that were intercepted while being shipped from South Africa to China.

US officials alleged that the equipment was meant to help China’s military improve its ability to track submarines and control advanced surveillance aircraft.

According to court filings, the equipment—known as mission crew trainers—was being transported from the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) to China’s military US authorities. The allegation is that the trainers were built using US-origin software and sensitive military technology without the required export authorization.

The MCTs were reportedly designed to resemble the P-8 Poseidon, a U.S.-made aircraft used primarily for anti-submarine warfare. Prosecutors say the goal of the project—internally known as “Project Elgar”—was to train Chinese pilots to locate and track U.S. submarines operating in the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, said the seizure was necessary to protect national security and prevent advanced American military technology from reaching foreign adversaries. Officials warned that such transfers could endanger U.S. service members and undermine America’s military advantage.

The forfeiture case is part of a broader US government effort to disrupt networks that help China obtain sensitive US or NATO military technology.

According to the South African company, the equipment and associated software were reviewed and vetted by relevant authorities prior to shipment, a process it said confirmed the absence of restricted or sensitive technology. The shipment, it said, was conducted lawfully and transparently, without any attempt to conceal the nature or purpose of the equipment.

Any lawyer worth their weight in salt will tell you that every contract under US law contains language limiting the export of encryption technology. The US government perceives, rightly so, that its technology and intellectual property are its secret sauce, its “Coke Recipe”. One of the main pain points that the US has with China is the continuous and blatant theft of US intellectual property. South African government affiliates just “giving it away” must be maddening to US officials.

“America First”

People almost always signal or tell you what they are going to do before they do it. In the US’s National Security Strategy, published for all the world to see, including the ANC leadership, Trump’s core principles of engagement are enunciated clearly. His paragraph on Competence and Merit applies tenfold in the South African context.

Competence and Merit – American prosperity and security depend on the development and promotion of competence. Competence and merit are among our greatest civilizational advantages: where the best Americans are hired, promoted, and honored, innovation and prosperity follow. Should competence be destroyed or systematically discouraged, complex systems that we take for granted—from infrastructure to national security to education and research—will cease to function. Should merit be smothered, America’s historic advantages in science, technology, industry, defense, and innovation will evaporate. The success of radical ideologies that seek to replace competence and merit with favored group status would render America unrecognizable and unable to defend itself. At the same time, we cannot allow meritocracy to be used as a justification to open America’s labor market to the world in the name of finding “global talent” that undercuts American workers. In our every principle and action, America and Americans must always come first.

When the ANC allows its most radical left-wing ideologues to dictate the country’s direction, competence and merit are replaced with ideology. BEEE (Black Economic Empowerment) racial quotas, expropriation of land, de-arming of private citizens are all levers of a centralized communist economy, seeking absolute control and power. With that will eventually come economic disaster of a level that will cripple Southern Africa. It does not take a political economist to predict, one only has to read one of the many books about Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jong to recognize the pattern.

The National Security Strategy document had only 3 paragraphs on Africa but the points to note are simple:

1. Spreading liberal ideology is no longer in the US’s strategic interest. Ameliorating conflict is the extent to which the US will involve itself in African nations.

2. Foreign aid to African governments does not yield any benefits for the US and all aid will be reconsidered.

3. Trade, investment, mining, oil and business are the focus of the US in Africa and the US intends to build mutual beneficial bilateral relationships.

I would add a fourth point that has flown over the heads of the leadership of the ANC:

4. Fostering geopolitical allies and partners in Africa to limit the influence of the US adversaries.

Senator Kennedy’s Bill

In September 2025, Senator Kennedy introduced a “Sense of Congress” bill to review the relations between South Africa and the USA. The bill is damning and reiterates the points I’ve raised in both my prior article and this one. It must be borne in mind that this tension did not arise with Trump. The Biden administration raised severe concerns with the behavior of the ANC government.

The bill is short but here are a few key points that are worth noting:

When I was researching for this article, an online search listed article after article praising President Ramaphosa’s calmness in the face of a Trump “smackdown” in the Oval Office. The legacy media (i.e. liberal media) railed against the “white supremacy” and “genocidal claims” of Trump against a benighted poor African leader only searching for breadcrumbs for his supplicants. The narrative is spun as blatantly as the “safe and effective” vaccine narrative was, and each outlet echoes the approved line of thinking and narrative.

What’s clear is that President Trump has a two-fold strategy with South Africa. The first is to strip away the veils of delusion that cloak the ANC-run government and reveal its full ugliness, corruption and rot for all the world to see. The second is that of compassion: to offer a hand of help to those targeted by racist policies and, by using the geopolitical weight of the United States, to compel internal change in those policies.

An American reading this may wonder how this is an “American First” policy. Without personally speaking to Trump or State Department officials, I can only theorize that, as with Israel (which is a bulwark against authoritarianism in the Middle East,) so too is South Africa a bulwark against the failure of all of Africa as a continent. The influx of illegal migrants from the Congo and elsewhere in Africa into the US is a small precursor of what would happen if all of Africa was allowed to fail. South Africa’s agriculture - run by a mere 30,000 farmers (predominantly white) - feeds the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. The first world economy and infrastructure historically associated with SA, despite the ANC’s policies of neglect and incompetence, provide any American corporation with a launchpad into the rest of Africa.

A good friend once said to me that when he lectures in Europe to a European student body, and often asks them how they see Africa. They respond with negativity and view it as the lost “dark” continent. When he asks that same question of Chinese students, they see Africa as opportunity.

Trump, the eternal businessman, sees opportunity. Untapped talent, fertile land, vast mineral reserves are as enticing as they’ve always been. However, prior policies of Western nations, including those of the US, was to always keep African nations destabilized and fractured, allowing oil and gold mining companies unfettered access to loot and plunder whilst the local population fended off their own government. Trump could easily ignore the plight of minorities in South Africa and sign any deal with the ANC government. However, it’s clear to me that his personal ties to South Africans and his realization that there is something unique about the genetics of South Africans that makes them extraordinarily successful and enables them to punch well above their weight, tempers the businessman in him. I am convinced that he wants to see real change. I believe, to the contrary of all liberal media, that Trump wants what is best for ALL of South Africans, not just the ANC elite.

I don’t hold out much hope that the ANC leadership will change its approach. I fear that their genetic predisposition would never allow them to second-guess their policies.

One of my Air Force friends had a tour in Afghanistan around 2014. When he came back, he told me how much US equipment and supplies were pilfered by the local Afghanis. When he spoke to a local Afghan about this, the local replied that they know that the Americans will leave at some point. And when they do, the country will disintegrate. This was their one opportunity to make some money and get something before it all disappeared. Likewise, the ANC elite are pilfering the resources and the economy of South Africa, selling their souls to the highest bidder, as they know that their time will soon come to an end. I sincerely hope that Trump helps usher in that end sooner rather than later.

One can only hope that the light Trump shines on this criminal leadership helps the average South African voter to realize that voting for the ANC, or its first cousins, the MK or EFF, will be voting for more of the same.

Concluding thoughts about Elephant Dung

I’ve been in Botswana for a few days. It’s been pouring with rain so game drives in an open top vehicle through mostly muddy and watery roads has lost its appeal. I asked the game guide to give me a Botswana saying analogous to “poking the bear”. Parents, he told me, tell their children many stories that have a lesson to learn. One of them is not to kick elephant dung. I asked him why that was. Elephants don’t digest the big acacia thorns. They eat the entire thing whole and the thorn remains in its dung which it liberally deposits all over the bushveld. The big round dung looks like a perfect soccer ball to a young kid growing up in the wilderness. But there are thorns in the dung and if they kick it, they could get a massive thorn (three inches long on average) stuck in their foot.

The ANC government is kicking around lots of elephant dung. The thorn is lying in wait for them.

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Disclaimer: All opinions in this article are my own and all errors in judgment are mine alone. I do not represent any organization or company and my views are my own.

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