South Africa: War talk aside, Ramaphosa and Putin to meet face-to-face
President Cyril Ramaphosa's fear of Russia's "declaration of war" over Vladimir Putin's arrest saga seems forgotten as he presses for peace between Russia and Ukraine in a face-to-face meeting with Putin.
Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told News24 on Tuesday that the Africa-led peace mission had established confidence between the warring countries in Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine since February last year.
Ramaphosa – who will attend the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg, Russia, planned for Thursday and Friday – will meet Putin a week after his publicised affidavit to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that his fear of war with Russia was the reason he did not want to execute the March-issued International Criminal Court (ICC) Putin arrest warrant.
The government claimed a diplomatic victory last week when it announced that Putin would not physically attend the BRICS summit planned for next month when domestic and international laws would have forced the government to arrest Putin.
Ramaphosa told both the ICC and the High Court that he feared that Russia would wage war on South Africa if it were to arrest Putin.
He said the government took threats by Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev seriously.
Ramaphosa's visit to Russia comes a month after the pair met in the same town on a peace mission by six African heads of state: Comoros, Senegal, Zambia, Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt and Uganda.
Magwenya said African leaders had discussed "confidence-building" measures with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"So, it won't be a new discussion. Instead, it is a continuation of talks that have been held with both President Putin and President Zelensky," Magwenya said.
He added:
South Africa will use the summit backdrop to further engage Russia at a bilateral level to finalise the contents and substance of the upcoming BRICS summit.
The ICC issued the warrant based on Putin's alleged responsibility for war crimes allegedly committed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Presidency said, among other items, this week's Russia summit is expected to discuss trade opportunities, security measures such as the fight against terrorism, and the protection of information in the cyber age.
BRICS security
The gathering comes after BRICS security advisors and ministers met in Johannesburg this week.
Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, stressed the need for the five-nation grouping to deal with counterterrorism, transnational crimes and cyber security measures.
Ntshavheni said the security meeting would "chart a way forward together for global resilience, for global peace [and] for mutual development and innovation".
"There are also challenges that are persistent; that affect all of us as a global family. And we must reinforce the work that we do, both through [the] BRICS system, and also through the multilateral system of the United Nations," she said.
Ntshavheni's spokesperson, Sipho Mbele, said the security meeting featured "friends of BRICS" – a grouping that includes the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and known Russia ally Belarus, among other nations.
Mbele said the "friends of BRICS" were countries that "have expressed an interest in joining BRICS".
Agoa threats over Russia relationship
South Africa's continued relationship with Russia has affected its participation in the US trade deal, Agoa.
Agoa is a US legislation that gives duty-free imports to African exporters into the American market. Last year, South Africa benefitted with around $640 million worth of its exports into the US market because of the Agoa deal.
Agricultural head at Nedbank, John Hudson, wrote that South Africa would have to find a new "important" market should the country not be included in a new Agoa deal.
He added that the spectre of sanctions also loomed large for South Africa after the US slapped Russia with an embargo for the Ukraine conflict.
"If we don't renew the agreement and it goes to full-blown sanctions, that's a completely different ball game. Then we will lose that market and you might expect that other countries such as the UK and the [European Union] as a bloc would stop trading with South Africa ... 40% of our trade goes to those countries," Hudson said.
Last month, International Relations and Co-operations Minister Naledi Pandor said, at the sidelines of a BRICS foreign ministers' meeting, that the New Development Bank – colloquially known as the BRICS Bank – was tasked with exploring the creation of a new global currency to rival the US dollar.
Pandor was spooked by the Russia embargo, saying at last month's meeting that the creation of the new currency would “ensure that we do not become victims to sanctions that have secondary effects on countries that have no involvement in issues that have led to those unilateral sanctions".
Countering dollar weaponisation
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs, contended that the discussions surrounding the creation of a global currency to rival the US dollar were "part of the thinking of wanting to break away from the current [global] architecture".
"And, more specifically, to [counter] the ability to weaponise the dollar [for] sanctions and things like that. BRICS can become a nucleus for a new way of doing things globally that can feed into the more formal multilateral processes – whether that is to reform existing institutions … or to transform the system by potentially creating institutions that compete with existing ones," Sidiropoulos noted.
She added: "Depending on how countries align, we may see parallel structures or geopolitical and regional [groupings] that emerge."
This article originally appeared on news24
Photo: DIRCO