South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Roelf Meyer—who was the apartheid-era government’s chief negotiator during talks to end white rule in the early 1990s—as his country’s ambassador to the United States.
Meyer, 78, will replace Ebrahim Rasool, who was expelled in March 2025 and was accused by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio of being a “race-baiting politician who hates America.”
“I can confirm that President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Mr Roelf Meyer as South Africa’s Ambassador to the US,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya said in a statement.
The appointment of Meyer comes after a period of strained relations between South Africa and Washington, during which U.S. President Donald Trump has aired concerns about reports of white Afrikaners in the country being subjected to a “genocide.”…