South Africa’s latest ambassador to Ireland, Jeremiah Ndou, tells Catherine Reilly how the ‘Rainbow Nation’ plans to forge greater links with Ireland and beyond
IRELAND’S NOT an easy place to be right now – even on the pampered ambassadorial circuit. Dwindling are the potential big-spending tourists or direct investors, so the hard sell is on for Ireland’s foreign diplomats.
South African ambassador Jeremiah Ndou wouldn’t know another Irish reality: he was accredited in February 2010, when the Irish economic meltdown had morphed from bad into worse. But the show must go on, and Ndou cites the embassy’s intention to stage tourism and investment networking events.
Hailing from South Africa’s northern province of Limpopo, it was as an ANC Youth League activist in the ’80s that Ndou noticed his inclination “to work on international relations”, and he acknowledges that the “mobilisation of the international community” was a key factor in South Africa’s “liberation” from apartheid.
Ndou was a parliamentarian before being selected as his country’s ambassador to Zimbabwe in 1999, a post he held until 2005. It was an era when Mugabe’s Zimbabwe became a byword for heinous human rights abuses, crippling poverty and hyperinflation.
“It was during challenging times for Zimbabwe,” he says of his post, “and it was also very challenging for us as representatives of different countries there.”
Most recently, tensions appear to be revving up again in Zimbabwe, with unrest surfacing during a demonstration by the Zanu-PF party of President Mugabe against a South African company taking over a car-parking contract. Zanu-PF says political rivals were behind the unrest, which resulted in violence against foreigners. Worryingly, the BBC reported that diplomatic sources described the demonstrations as having “all the hallmarks of systematic pre-election intimidation”.
Ambassador Ndou comments: “What is important is we work on ensuring that Zimbabwe progresses towards a stable economy, a stable political set up, that will ensure that Zimbabweans are free to choose, to express themselves, to participate in the society.”
In politically tense settings, suggests Ndou, events such as the aforementioned are not unusual.
Following his time in Harare, Ndou served as ambassador in Libya before being dispatched to Ireland last year.
“I think our relations with Ireland are very cordial and in a good state, so there wasn’t a lot of challenges,” he reflects. “My predecessor [Priscilla Jana] did a very good job in terms of setting up a stage for good relations, in trade and selling South Africa as a destination, it made it easy for me to come in and continue the good work.”
His predecessor was indeed a high-energy diplomat – but that’s not what she’s best remembered for on this isle. Rather, Jana is chiefly associated with her citation of diplomatic immunity when a Ukrainian employee lodged formal complaints of alleged employment exploitation.
Ndou, speaking in general terms, says “diplomatic immunity is an international agreement” and that diplomats cannot legally reject immunity from prosecution (only the sending state can waive the individual diplomat’s immunity).
“I can’t stand on my own and say ‘I’m not a diplomat’,” he says, “legally it’s not possible because you’ve been accredited by the president of the receiving state.” He adds that, if a country has a problem with a diplomat, it can request the sending country to recall them but says diplomatic immunity “should not be used as an excuse to exploit anyone”.
THERE ARE an estimated 8-9,000 South African nationals in Ireland. Standard queries at the embassy relate to passports and official documentation, but it also encounters those in distress – having lost their jobs or abandoned studies due to financial problems.
“We have South Africans who came to study – some in the middle of their studies did not have enough money to continue,” says Ndou. “We do work with them to try and see what can be done so that they can continue their studies.”
South Africans in Ireland also visit the embassy to cast their ballots in national elections – once registered to vote, underlines the ambassador.
Meanwhile, a key aim of the embassy is to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Africa “so that we stimulate growth and deal with the problems we have”, such as massive unemployment.
There are around one hundred Irish companies in South Africa – in areas such as construction and IT – and “we really want to increase that number”, says Ndou.
In 2008 two-way trade between Ireland and South Africa was worth over €500m annually, while in 2009 South African exports to Ireland were worth R1.1bn (€95m).
Back home, Ndou believes “huge strides” are being made in South African society, which he terms “a developing democracy”.
“I don’t understand why they say we are not yet a democracy. I think we are,” he adds. “Freedom of expression is allowed, freedom of association is allowed... Maybe it’s something we need to explore and understand why people are worried about it.”
Its legacy of apartheid, and host of heady social problems, represent plenty to be worried about, however. The ambassador contends that the 2010 Fifa World Cup showed “it is possible for sport to unite a nation” – but sport also still represents South Africans’ continued racial divisions, with whites predominating in rugby, and blacks in soccer.
Asked of the lack of black rugby players, for example, the ambassador responds: “I think its a process... the players who are there are very skillful. I don’t think we want to see black faces because they’re black, I think we want to see rugby players who are skilled and fit to be on the national team, whether you are black or white.
“The issue arising is one of people who are coming from the disadvantaged background who were never part of the system in terms of rugby or even football... People argue that in football there are not enough white players in the national team, that’s [also] something we’ve got to look at.”
He says the “process of development, developing players at local level” is already happening on both fronts.
PLENTY IS happening on the African continent right now; even the Sudan issue has been sidelined in the wake of revolution in north Africa and the Middle East. But South Sudan will create a high diplomatic challenge for both sides of the divided country once the new state is formed in July, it’s put to the ambassador.
“I think anything is possible,” he replies, “I think it is possible that the two governments will be able to work together.”
While they “still have issues to resolve”, he takes heart that the referendum took place in a relatively peaceful manner, and is also upbeat about the April elections in Africa’s giant, Nigeria.
“Nigeria has been having military leaders for so many years,” he says, “but since democracy started we’ve seen a growing trend to ensure that process remains steadfast.”
