Expelled South African ambassador returns home, says will wear U.S. sanction as ‘badge of dignity’

South Africa's ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool speaks at the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The South African ambassador who was expelled from the United States and declared persona non grata by the Trump administration was given a hero’s welcome on his return home Sunday, when hundreds of supporters gathered at an airport and sang songs praising him.

The crowds at Cape Town International Airport surrounded Ebrahim Rasool and his wife Rosieda as they emerged in the arrivals terminal in their hometown, and they needed a police escort to help them navigate their way through the building.

“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool told the supporters as he addressed them with a megaphone. ”But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth ... like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity.”

“It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets.”

Rasool also said it was important for South Africa to fix its relationship with the U.S. after President Donald Trump punished the country and accused it of taking an anti-American stance even before the decision to expel Rasool.

The U.S. president issued an executive order last month cutting all funding to South Africa, alleging its government is supporting the Palestinian group Hamas and Iran, and pursuing anti-white policies at home.

“We don’t come here to say we are anti-American,” Rasool said to the crowd. “We are not here to call on you to throw away our interests with the United States.”

Rasool stands by the comments cited by Rubio

They were the ex-ambassador’s first public comments since the Trump administration declared him persona non grata over a week ago, removed his diplomatic immunities and privileges, and gave him until this Friday to leave the U.S.

It is highly unusual for the U.S. to expel a foreign ambassador.

Rasool was declared persona non grata by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a post on X on March 14. Rubio said Rasool was a “race-baiting politician” who hates the U.S. and Trump.

Rubio’s post linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site that reported on a talk Rasool gave on a webinar organized by a South African think tank. In his talk, Rasool spoke in academic language of the Trump administration’s crackdowns on diversity and equity programs and immigration and mentioned the possibility of a U.S. where white people soon would no longer be in the majority.

“The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the U.S.A., the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the U.S.A. in which the voting electorate in the U.S.A. is projected to become 48% white,” Rasool said in the talk.

On his return home Sunday, he said he stood by those comments, and characterized them as merely alerting intellectuals and political leaders in South Africa that the U.S. and its politics had changed.

“It is not the U.S. of Obama, it is not the U.S. of Clinton, it is a different U.S. and therefore our language must change,” Rasool said. “I would stand by my analysis because we were analyzing a political phenomenon, not a personality, not a nation, and not even a government.”

He also said that South Africa would resist pressure from the U.S. — and anyone else — to drop its case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Trump administration has cited that case against U.S. ally Israel as one of the reasons it alleges South Africa is anti-American.

The Breitbart story Rubio cited when announcing Rasool’s expulsion was written by South African-born senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak, who is Jewish and an ally of the Trump administration. Pollak is also a contender to be the new U.S. ambassador to South Africa, according to South African media.

Some of the supporters welcoming Rasool, who is Muslim, home to Cape Town waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free Palestine.”

“As we stand here, the bombing (in Gaza) has continued and the shooting has continued, and if South Africa was not in the (International Court of Justice), Israel would not be exposed, and the Palestinians would have no hope,” Rasool said. “We cannot sacrifice the Palestinians ... but we will also not give up with our relationship with the United States. We must fight for it, but we must keep our dignity.”

Gerald Imray, The Associated Press