Roelf Meyer with Cyril Ramaphosa in 1996. The black majority, who sacrificed so much in the struggle against apartheid, deserve better than to have their future brokered by an unreconstructed apartheid operative acting as Ramaphosa’s envoy to Trump, writes Carl Niehaus.
Image: Obed Zilwa / Independent Media Archives
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to appoint Roelf Meyer as South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is not merely a poor diplomatic choice. It is a shameful, pathetic, and deeply humiliating act of surrender that confirms what many of us have long suspected: the true liberation of the black majority was deliberately derailed three decades ago and is now being openly auctioned off to USA imperialism and the protection of white privilege.
History has no empty pages, and those of us who lived through the transition know the truth intimately. During the CODESA negotiations, I served as National Spokesperson of the ANC and as a junior member of the ANC’s negotiating team. From close quarters — attending sessions, observing side meetings, and monitoring the daily interactions between the delegations — I witnessed firsthand the sickeningly inappropriate personal friendship and political relationship that developed between Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s chief negotiator, and Roelf Meyer, the chief negotiator for the apartheid National Party.
What struck me then, and what remains undeniable today, was how this overly close and manipulative bond operated. In all critical matters of principle — whenever the rights and interests of black South Africans were on the line, including questions of land restitution without compensation, genuine black economic empowerment, dismantling white monopoly capital, or ensuring real national sovereignty — Ramaphosa consistently took the lead from Meyer.
Meyer was not a mere counterpart or negotiating opponent; he functioned as Ramaphosa’s white baas and handler. The spineless Ramaphosa was all too willing to follow his direction. Time and again, positions that could have advanced the radical transformation demanded by the Freedom Charter were softened, compromised, or outright abandoned at Meyer’s urging. The result was the deeply flawed 1993 Interim Constitution and the final 1996 Constitution that entrenched property rights in a manner that continues to shield stolen land and white wealth from meaningful redress.
It was on the basis of that firsthand experience that I have always been so vehemently opposed to Ramaphosa becoming the President of the ANC, and ultimately the President of South Africa. Even then it was clear that he is a weak, spineless sell-out who has been handled by Roelf Meyer as his white handler. Meyer was never a partner in liberation — he was the guardian of white privilege, and Ramaphosa was all too willing to follow his direction.
Roelf Meyer was no innocent reformer. He served as Apartheid Minister of Defence in 1991–1992 under F.W. de Klerk. He participated in the notorious State Security Council (SSC), the sinister apex body that planned, coordinated, and approved the apartheid regime’s cross-border military raids on ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe bases in the Frontline States, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, including women and children.
The same SSC systematically orchestrated the assassination of anti-apartheid leaders and fighters both inside and outside South Africa as part of a deliberate strategy of state terrorism to defend white minority rule. Meyer’s hands carry the bloody stains of that regime’s atrocities, yet today he is being rewarded with one of the most prestigious diplomatic postings in our foreign service.
Meyer’s role at CODESA was explicit: to safeguard white privilege and ensure that the transition did not threaten the economic dominance of the white minority or its Western backers. He succeeded brilliantly because he found a willing partner in Ramaphosa. The “amicable” relationship praised in polite circles was, in reality, a mechanism for managed and shameful surrender. The “Record of Understanding” and subsequent deals bore the clear imprint of this collaboration — one that prioritised stability and comfort for white capital over justice for the dispossessed black majority.
This pattern did not end in 1994. The inappropriate relationship continued seamlessly. When Ramaphosa ascended to the presidency in 2017, Meyer promptly re-emerged as his special adviser. Later, when Ramaphosa initiated his so-called National Dialogue, Meyer was elevated as one of the “eminent persons” tasked with shaping the process. Throughout, Meyer has remained Ramaphosa’s trusted guide on how far “transformation” can be allowed to go without disturbing white comfort, privilege and economic control.
Now, in 2026, this sordid chapter reaches its logical and disgraceful climax. Ramaphosa has appointed this apartheid-era figure as South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States under Donald Trump’s administration. Meyer will not defend South African sovereignty. He will not push back against Trump’s aggressive “America First” agenda or the racist posturing of his MAGA supporters. Instead, he will continue what he has always done: compromise, accommodate, and sell out. He will represent not the proud, sovereign aspirations of black South Africans, but the interests of white privilege and Western capital.
This appointment comes on the heels of another act of shameful weakness. Ramaphosa meekly accepted the letters of credence from Trump’s white supremacist racist envoy, Leo Brent Bozell III, as US Ambassador to South Africa. He did so even after Bozell, since he has arrived in South Africa, throughout showed his true colors and insulted our legal system and our nation. He literally showed us a middle finger, and yet Ramaphosa proceeded to receive him with smiles and sell-out hugs. Any self-respecting government confronting such undiplomatic and hostile rhetoric from Bozell — who has openly attacked our policies on land and affirmative action — would have declared him persona non grata. Instead, Ramaphosa chose shameful weakness and supplication. What a shame!
The message to the world, and especially to Trump and his MAGA hordes, is clear: South Africa under Ramaphosa is open for business on terms favourable to the West. Land expropriation without compensation? Shelved. Radical economic transformation? Tamed. National sovereignty? Negotiable.
As someone who observed these CODESA betrayals - and how it continued unabated since - up close, I say without hesitation: No! Enough is enough!
We cannot allow this cycle of capitulation to continue. The black majority, who sacrificed so much in the struggle against apartheid, deserve better than to have their future brokered by an unreconstructed apartheid operative acting as Ramaphosa’s envoy to Trump. Meyer’s appointment is an insult to every victim of apartheid violence, every dispossessed family still waiting for land, and every young black South African whose economic prospects remain stifled by the constitutional compromises Meyer helped to manipulate and engineer.
Ramaphosa’s action is not pragmatic diplomacy — it is pathetic weakness dressed up as so-called “statesmanship”. It perpetuates the very power relations the liberation struggle sought to dismantle. It signals to white monopoly capital and Western imperialism that South Africa remains a captured state where real change is off the table.
The time has come for South Africans committed to genuine freedom to reject this sell-out politics. We must demand the immediate rescinding of Meyer’s appointment. We must insist that Leo Brent Bozell III be declared persona non grata and expelled. Above all, we must confront the deeper rot: a leadership that has lost the will — or never truly possessed it — to complete the unfinished business of liberation.
True economic freedom, the return of the land, and the empowerment of the black majority are not optional extras. They are the non-negotiable demands of justice. Ramaphosa and his apartheid-era handlers represent the past. The future belongs to those prepared to break decisively with this culture of compromise and crawling.
It is now absolutely enough of Ramaphosa selling out our people, compromising our future, and destroying the prospects of our children! Ramaphosa and his apartheid-era handlers must go!
The black majority, who sacrificed so much in the struggle against apartheid, deserve better than to have their future brokered by an unreconstructed apartheid operative acting as Ramaphosa’s envoy to Trump, writes Carl Niehaus.
Image: Supplied
* Ambassador Carl Niehaus is an EFF Member of Parliament (MP).
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.