sanctions for alleged ties to a company that has transported arms for the Russian government. Ambassador Reuben Brigety said “I would bet my life” that weapons were loaded onto the Russian-flagged Lady R, which is under U.S. Ambassador to South Africa earlier this month when he accused it of providing weapons to Russia via a cargo ship that docked at a naval base near the city of Cape Town in December. There are also growing economic ties between Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people, and China. The West appears concerned that the ANC’s old ideological ties to Russia are now pulling South Africa into Moscow’s political orbit amid burgeoning global tensions. South Africa has a historical relationship with Russia connected to the old Soviet Union’s military and political support for the ANC when it was a liberation movement fighting to end the racist apartheid regime that oppressed the country’s Black majority. “Do you think that a head of state can just be arrested anywhere?” Mbalula, a former Cabinet minister who is now the ANC’s top administrative official, said in the BBC interview. The South African government has indicated it will not carry out the arrest warrant if Putin does travel for the summit, although it hasn’t said that explicitly. “We will welcome him to come here as part and parcel of BRICS.”Īs a signatory to the International Criminal Court treaty, South Africa is obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country. “If it was according to the ANC, we would want President Putin to be here, even tomorrow, to come to our country,” Mbalula said in the interview, excerpts of which were posted on the ANC’s social media channels on Tuesday. The bloc is made up of Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa. The comments by African National Congress Secretary General Fikile Mbalula regarding Putin were made in an interview with the BBC and in the context of the Russian leader attending a summit of the BRICS economic bloc in South Africa in August. Separately, a top official in South Africa’s ruling party added to the scrutiny of the country’s relationship with Russia by saying the party would “welcome” a visit by President Vladimir Putin, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - The South African government was under more pressure Wednesday for declining to release cargo documents relating to the visit by a Russian ship that the United States alleges collected a consignment of weapons for Moscow.
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