Why Ramaphosa must let Putin be

The visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to South Africa in August for the Brics Summit will serve as test of faith for South Africa.

As a signatory to the Rome Statute, this country is supposed to arrest the Russian leader as soon as he lands on our shores. That poses a dilemma for President Cyril Ramaphosa, who seems to be favoured by the Biden administration.

Ramaphosa wouldn’t take a strong anti-West position, considering his background as a silent capitalist. Unlike Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma who, albeit both being non-leftist, took a leftist stance on foreign relations and avoided any manipulation by the West.

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Instead, Mbeki emphasised the renaissance of Africa and continent’s growth while Zuma was into Brics and building strong relations with Russia and China.

Ramaphosa hardly utters a word on Brics and Africa as forces that must lead the way. Russia is a fellow partner in the Brics forum of developing nations and one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, popularly known as the P5 ,that each hold veto power at the council.

So if South Africa arrests Putin, it would be acting against one of the most powerful leaders in the world. But this is unlikely to happen.

The Soviet Union trained MK cadres; ironically some of the MK members were sent to Ukraine by Moscow. All MK weapons and military fatigues had a Russian mark on them. So the relationship between the ANC and Russia is deep.

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If South Africa refused to arrest the former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was not even an ally, in 2017 when he came here, how much more to the leader of Russia?

But South Africa is a friend of both the West and Russia and insists on its “non-aligned” position which is not easy to understand because SA does not explain it well. In fact, as it is, SA’s foreign policy is not clear cut, it’s wobbly.

I was researching our foreign policy as part of my studies – it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Nothing but mentions in passing in statements by International Relations and Cooperation Minister Dr Naledi Pandor and the recent bad articulation of this as one of the ANC 55th national conference resolutions at Nasrec.

When you read it, it’s not clear whether the ANC wants South Africa to pull out of the ICC or not. The irony of the whole ICC (International Criminal Court) decision to arrest Putin is that both Russia and the US are not signatories to the Rome Statute.

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In fact, the US is a vehement opponent of the international court and its decisions, it believed, were “based on hearsay”. If these countries, especially the US, do not recognise the ICC, why should South Africa remain in it or recognise it, especially when its prosecutions are selective?

It is a fact that the ICC focuses only on weak nations in Africa and elsewhere, but ignores atrocities committed by the stronger nations. There are many of those atrocities to count.

South Africa needs to clearly produce a policy document explaining its foreign policy neutrality, like Turkmenistan did after it gained its independence, following the fall of the Soviet Union. As things stand, you are left to guess what our position is on crucial foreign relations.

At the same time our constitutional obligations are supposed to be embedded in our foreign policy – but in practice we go the wrong way. The country is supposed to be a champion of constitutional rights inside and outside its borders.

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While we are waiting for the government to pronounce whether it would invite Putin to come or prevent him from participating in the Brics meeting, let’s not hope the government will arrest Putin. It’s impossible.