Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (right) before meeting a delegation of African leaders at the Constantine Palace in Strelna near St Petersburg June 17, 2023. RAMIL SITDIKOV / AFP
After months of speculation, South Africa and Russia have finally put an end to the psychodrama that has been wracking Pretoria in the run-up to the BRICS (short for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit, due to take place August 22-24 in Johannesburg. “By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin will not attend the summit,” the South African presidency announced in a statement on Wednesday, July 19. For his part, the spokesman for the Russian Presidential Office, Dmitry Peskov, hinted that Putin would attend virtually, which he said would amount to “full participation.” Russia will be represented in Johannesburg by its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The case has embarrassed South Africa since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant in March for Vladimir Putin, a war criminal suspected of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. As a signatory to the Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to apply the ICC’s decisions, which theoretically oblige it to arrest the Russian president if he sets foot on its soil.
But the South African authorities were torn between their international obligations and their proximity to Moscow. “Russia has made it clear that any arrest of its incumbent president would amount to a declaration of war. “It would not be compatible with our constitution to risk embroiling the country in a war with Russia,” South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa said in a court affidavit in June. The court was called by the country’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which wanted to ensure Vladimir Putin’s arrest if he entered the country.
“Two weights, two measures”
On the contrary, the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa since the end of apartheid, has repeatedly indicated in recent months that Vladimir Putin would be welcome if he had his way. For many years, the party has denounced the ICC’s “double standards,” which it criticizes in particular for never prosecuting US President George W. Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair for conducting the Iraq war.
In 2015, South African authorities refused to execute an ICC arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. The government then stated that the immunity of an incumbent head of state barred him from making his arrest. After a South African court denied this, the authorities finally exfiltrated the Sudanese president in a hurry. This precedent made it difficult to reproduce such acrobatics with Vladimir Putin.
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