HOMECOMING: Former South African Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool arrived in Cape Town on Sunday
Image: Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Media
EXPELLED South African Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool returned to a hero’s welcome in Cape Town yesterday.
The Kapenaar, 62, was received by his family at the Cape Town International Airport and a vrag of his political comrades, despite reported warnings from President Cyril Ramaphosa not to rub US counterpart Donald Trump up the wrong way.
Rasool was hailed by Cosatu, the South African Communist Party and the ANC in the Western Cape.
Rasool’s arrival came after US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio booted him out of the country, declaring him “persona non grata” following his comments made in a webinar, criticising the Trump administration.
The US government told Rasool earlier this month that he had a week to finalise his plans and leave the United States.
This marks the latest development in the rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations between the United States of America and South Africa.
Rasool, the former Premier of the Western Cape, is supposed to be a seasoned diplomat.
He just served as South Africa’s ambassador to the United States for the second time.
He first served as South Africa’s ambassador to the US from 2010 until 2015 when the friendly Barack Obama was the US president.
Then his second and short-lived stint in 2025 coincided with the more hostile Trump taking reins on 20 January 2025, to start his delayed second term as President.
Malvern de Bruyn, Cosatu’s provincial secretary in the Western Cape says: “As Cosatu, we are saying that Ebrahim Rasool is one of us. He is a child of the soil."
The union strongly opposed what it sees as the Trump administration’s unjust treatment of the South Africa government to expel its ambassador to the US.
SACP Western Cape provincial secretary Benson Ngqentsu adds: “We are joining the home welcome programme of Comrade Rasool to assert our national sovereignty because we deployed Rasool to the US to advance and deepen our diplomatic relations with the US with the context of our shared National Democratic Revolution, not as a puppet of the populist right-wing-authoritarian imperialists. This is the bottom line.”