The South African ambassador who was expelled from the US after a row with Donald Trump’s government has said he has “no regrets”.
Ebrahim Rasool arrived back home on Sunday and was welcomed by hundreds of raucous supporters at Cape Town International Airport.
Tensions between South Africa and the US have been on a downward spiral since Trump came into office in January.
Rasool, 62, was declared unwelcome in the US after State Secretary Marco Rubio called him a “race-baiting politician who hates America”. It followed a statement by the ambassador that Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” as the States’ white population faced becoming a minority.
Rasool defended his comments on Sunday morning after touching down in Cape Town.
The remarks, made during a webinar organised by a South African think-tank, were meant to “alert” South African intellectuals and political leaders “to a change of the way we live, to a change of the way we are positioned in the United States, that the old way of doing business with the US was not a good one”, Rasool said.
While waiting for Rasool to arrive at the airport, members of the African National Congress, South African Communist Party and South African Trade Union members sung and danced.
Some held placards reading “Ebrahim Rasool, you have served our country with honour!!!”
Rasool’s expulsion marked a rare move by the US – lower-ranking diplomats are sometimes expelled, but it is highly unusual for it to happen to a more senior official.
But ties with South Africa have been deteriorating for months.
Credit: bbc.com
