South Africa summons new US envoy over ‘undiplomatic remarks’

JOHANNESBURG – Pretoria summoned the new US ambassador on March 11 to explain “undiplomatic remarks” about South African racial policies and court decisions, the foreign minister said.

Conservative envoy Leo Brent Bozell III took up his post in February with bilateral ties fractured over a range of issues, from South Africa’s genocide case against US ally Israel to US President Donald Trump’s disputed claims that white Afrikaners are being persecuted.

In his first public address on March 10, the new ambassador labelled an apartheid-era chant, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” as “hate speech” and criticised policies meant to empower black South Africans.

“We have called in the ambassador of the United States, Ambassador Bozell, to explain his undiplomatic remarks,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told journalists.

Mr Trump has used the chant to back his unfounded claims of a white genocide in South Africa, showing clips of it at a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House in May in 2025.

It is controversial in South Africa but courts have ruled it does not constitute hate speech and should be considered in the context of the struggle against white-minority rule that ended in 1994.

“I’m sorry, I don’t care what your courts say, it’s hate speech,” Mr Bozell said at March 10’s meeting of business leaders.

The new envoy appeared to backtrack on March 11, saying on X: “I want to clarify that while my personal view – like that of many South Africans – is that ‘Kill the Boer’ constitutes hate speech, the US government respects the independence and findings of South Africa’s judiciary.”

Mr Bozell also criticised South Africa’s black economic empowerment policies in the March 10 address, saying they could lead to disinvestment, and comparing current policies with apartheid race laws.

Repeating misleading figures pushed by pro-white lobby groups and false claims of “reversed” discrimination, he claimed there were 147 race laws against black South Africans under apartheid and roughly the same number now against whites.

In response, Mr Lamola said: “We reiterate that broad-based black economic empowerment is not reverse racism, as regrettably insinuated by the ambassador.”

“It is a fundamental instrument designed to address the structural imbalances of South Africa’s unique history. It is a constitutional imperative that the South African government can and will never abandon,” he said.

Mr Bozell “must not take us back to a polarised society along racial lines”, Mr Lamola added.

“His role as a guest is to support us to build one nation.”

Right-wing envoy

A figure of the American right, Mr Bozell is the founder of the Media Research Center, a non-profit group that says it works to “expose and counter the leftist bias of the national news media”.

In 1990, when former South African president Nelson Mandela toured the United States after being freed from prison for his fight against apartheid, Mr Bozell’s non-profit criticised the media for having “never referred to Mandela as a saboteur or terrorist”.

At his October Senate hearing, Mr Bozell justified the comment by the fact that Mr Mandela’s African National Congress was at the time “aligned with the Soviet Union”, adding though that Mr Mandela was today the person he had “the most respect for” in South Africa.

Mr Bozell also said he would push Pretoria to end its genocide case against Israel and promote Mr Trump’s offer of refugee status to the white Afrikaner minority.

Mr Bozell’s son, Mr Leo Brent Bozell IV, was one of almost 1,600 people convicted and sentenced for their role in the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

He was pardoned by the US President when Mr Trump took office in 2025. AFP