What the third demarche is about
South Africa has formally reprimanded United States Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III for the third time, according to Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola.
The grounds this time are what Lamola described as undiplomatic conduct. He said a diplomat cannot interfere in the domestic politics of a host country, called that the first rule of diplomacy, and said South Africa is capable of running its own domestic affairs.
He also said he was taken aback by the ambassador’s statement that the time for talking was over, arguing that resolving differences through dialogue is a diplomat’s job. If the ambassador was tired of talking, Lamola told the Sunday Times, he should “get out of the kitchen”.
Bozell responded publicly on X, saying that an insult aimed at an American leader, when denounced, “will result in a demarche with a lecture about being undiplomatic”, and that the South African government then wonders why relations are collapsing.
DIRCO had issued no public statement at the time of writing. Parliament is reported to be seeking answers on the matter.
Three demarches, and what that cadence means
A demarche is a formal diplomatic reprimand. An ambassador is called in and told their conduct is unacceptable. It is used sparingly, and three against one envoy is not an ordinary sequence.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 2025 | United States expels South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool |
| Early 2026 | First demarche of Bozell, over remarks about South African court rulings on the Kill the Boer chant |
| 27 August 2026 | Trump writes to Ramaphosa requesting an update on Washington’s five requests |
| 12 September 2026 | Ramaphosa’s reply delivered |
| 15 September 2026 | Secretary of State Marco Rubio announces visa restrictions |
| 29 September 2026 | Second demarche, over a series of media interviews |
| Early October 2026 | Third demarche, over undiplomatic conduct |
The Sunday Times puts the three demarches across nine months. Earlier reporting dated the first to March 2026, which would make it seven. Southafriworld could not resolve the difference and has flagged it.
Either way, the instrument has been used roughly once every two to three months against the same person.
Both sides now say it is not working
This is the part worth reading twice, because the two governments have arrived at the same observation from opposite directions.
Bozell’s response treats the demarche as a predictable cost of speaking. On his account, he criticises, he is reprimanded, and he will criticise again. That is a public statement that the reprimand does not change his conduct.
Lamola’s position is that the conduct is the problem and that the demarche states the rule being broken.
A demarche is designed to alter behaviour. Applied three times without altering it, it has become a record of disagreement rather than a lever on it.
Bozell set out his own reading in an opinion piece last week titled The Cost of Doing Nothing, arguing that the visa restrictions Rubio announced on 15 September followed directly from Pretoria’s refusal to engage on farm attacks and foreign investment. Pretoria’s position is that its domestic policy is sovereign and that Washington’s characterisation of it is wrong. Neither has moved, and this article does not rule between them.
Where a diplomatic escalation ladder runs
It is worth being clear about what comes next in conventional practice, and equally clear that nobody has proposed it.
The usual sequence runs from an expression of concern, to a demarche, to a summons for formal protest, to declaring a diplomat persona non grata and requiring them to leave.
South Africa has now used the demarche three times. That is not a prediction of what follows. It is a description of where the rung sits.
The relationship has a recent precedent at the top of that ladder, and it runs the other way. In March 2025 the United States expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, over his criticism of the Trump administration. That same year Washington pulled aid funding, issued an executive order against South Africa alleging human rights violations, and offered refugee status to white South Africans.
So this relationship has already seen an ambassador removed once, by the other party, in the past nineteen months. That is the context in which a third demarche is being counted. The ambassador in question arrived in Pretoria this year, as Southafriworld reported when he took up the post, following earlier warnings about sanctions.
The argument nobody in the exchange is making
Professor André Thomashausen told The Citizen that the real risk is economic rather than diplomatic.
He argued that South Africa is losing an enormous opportunity in economic cooperation, and that foregoing the chance to fix a failing economy would be a great loss and a misdirection of policy. He put the scale of the problem at half the adult population being unemployed, a figure that runs above the official expanded unemployment rate and which Southafriworld has flagged for confirmation.
The underlying point stands regardless of the figure. South Africa’s unemployment crisis is the country’s defining economic problem, and the United States remains its largest trade and investment partner in sub-Saharan Africa.
Neither government has framed the dispute in those terms this week. One is arguing about conduct, the other about policy. The cost of the argument, if there is one, lands on neither of them.
Three things remain outstanding. DIRCO has not stated the grounds on the record. Parliament has not yet had its answers. And no further United States measure has been announced beyond the visa restrictions of 15 September, which have still named nobody.
HOW WE REPORTED THIS CROSS-CHECKED
- This article was built from the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation's interview with the Sunday Times published on 3 October 2026, in which he confirmed the third demarche of the United States Ambassador and set out the grounds, together with the ambassador's public response and independent commentary.
- The three demarches were placed on a single timeline alongside the visa restrictions, the Ramaphosa reply and the 2025 expulsion of South Africa's own ambassador, because the cadence of the instrument is what distinguishes this episode and no account located had set it out.
- The observation that both governments now describe the demarche as producing no change was drawn from their own statements, with the ambassador characterising it as a predictable consequence he will absorb and the Minister restating the principle it is meant to enforce, and it is reported as a comparison of two stated positions rather than as a judgement on either.
- The conventional sequence of diplomatic escalation was described in general terms and the article states explicitly that no party has proposed expulsion, because setting out where an escalation ladder runs is context and predicting the next step would not be.
- Both governments' characterisations of the underlying dispute are reported on their own terms and this article does not rule between them, the word debunked used by other outlets about the farm attack claims is deliberately not adopted in Southafriworld's voice, and no comment was sought from any party.
- This article was drafted with AI assistance and the facts, figures and quotations were checked against the primary source by the editor before publication.
