The South African government's dilemma in hosting President Vladimir Putin will not be the straw that breaks the camel's back in relations between South Africa and Russia.
The West’s backers in South Africa would regard President Putin not coming to South Africa as a victory, but that is the only solace they can take as events are not going according to the West’s script.
In the big scheme of things President Putin not attending the BRICS summit will change nothing on the ground in Ukraine where Ukrainian troops are holed up in Bakhmut amid reports that the city will fall to Russian forces.
Neither will it change the momentum away from Western hegemony towards multilateralism and de-dollarisation.
The road towards multilaterism and freedom from Western hegemony is a long game and the South African government should act strategically. We have reached a watershed moment with regards to the ICC.
President Cyril Ramaphosa should act boldly and withdraw South Africa from the ICC now. Even though the United States is not a member of the ICC it is used as an instrument against geopolitical opponents of the United States and is therefore a biased and compromised institution.
The arrest warrant does not come from a place of actually addressing war crimes wherever they may occur. It is selective targeting of President Putin and Russia.
Former president George Bush and prime minister Tony Blair will never stand trial for their war crimes at the ICC. The West’s backers in South Africa are content with this so let’s not delude ourselves that their outrage is based on principle. The West’s ‘’sanctions from hell’’ have failed and have boomeranged on the EU. The attempts to isolate Russia have also failed. President Putin and Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov continue to engage with world leaders.
If Putin were to be removed from the Russian leadership his possible successor could be a pro-war, antiWestern hardliner.
None of which would bode well for Ukraine which has already lost Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia to Russia. Instead of engaging in ideological tantrums which would change nothing in Ukraine, the West’s backers in South Africa should face reality and support negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Calls to arrest President Putin would not be helpful in this
* Ghalied Geduldt, Maitland.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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