US Senate confirms Leo Bozell as ambassador to South Africa amid strained relations

Media critic and conservative activist Leo Bozell has been confirmed by the United States Senate to be that country’s next ambassador to South Africa.

Bozell’s nomination by President Donald Trump in March raised concerns, given Bozell’s history as an anti-ANC activist during the apartheid years.

The nomination had to pass through several legislative steps, including a hearing before the Senate’s foreign relations committee in October, before being put to the vote in the Senate on Wednesday.

In March, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, was sent back home for criticising Trump’s leadership style, and he’s not yet been replaced.

The United States has not had an ambassador in South Africa since January, following the resignation of Reuben Brigety ahead of the Trump administration taking charge.

During the wait for Leo Bozell’s confirmation as ambassador, the embassy in Pretoria has been run by an acting head of mission, David Green, who arrived in March.

This was at the height of tensions between the two countriesover President Trump’s false beliefs of a genocide in South Africa and his invitation for white Afrikaners to seek refuge in the US.

The US did not participate in most of the G20 programme in South Africa this year, while Trump says South Africa is not welcome in his country next year to attend G20 events.

In October, Bozell said if confirmed as ambassador, he would communicate the US’s objections to South Africa’s non-aligned stance towards Russia, Iran and China and press the government to drop its genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

"When South African politicians greet as friends those who seek to destabilise the world’s peace and security, then common ground between our two countries feels harder to find."

However, when questioned by a Democrat senator, Bozell would not say outright whether he truly believed there’s a genocide unfolding in South Africa.

On Tuesday, the Home Affairs Department arrested and deported seven Kenyan nationals who were processing refugee applications for Afrikaners seeking asylum in the US.