Cape Town - If Russian President Vladimir Putin sets foot in the Western Cape during his visit to South Africa for the BRICS summit in August, the Province’s junior officers will arrest him, Premier Alan Winde has warned.
Winde was reacting to the ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s flip-flopping on whether to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest last month.
Pressure has been mounting on the government to arrest Putin when he attends the summit attended by Brazil, Russia, India, China and the host nation in Durban from August 22 to 24.
Ramaphosa said earlier this week the ANC had called for South Africa to withdraw from the ICC over its perceived “unfair treatment” of certain nations.
“Our view is that we would like this matter of unfair treatment to be properly discussed. But in the meantime, the governing party has decided once again that there should be a pullout,” he said.
Later, Ramaphosa’s office backtracked and clarified that South Africa remained a signatory to the ICC.
Withdrawal from the ICC would only be considered as a last resort, and a local court would be established if there was “unfair treatment” in the administration of international law.
Winde called the government’s position “unacceptable and deplorable”, and threatened to arrest Putin, who is accused of war crimes, including the deportation of Ukrainian children.
“If the Russian leader sets foot in the Western Cape… the provincial government will have him arrested by our own Western Cape government-funded Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (Leap) officers. If the South African Police Service is not instructed to act, we will,” Winde said.
In his Freedom Day message on Thursday, Winde said the Western Cape government would not only fight for the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Western Cape, but would continue to show solidarity with Ukraine by taking a stand against Russia.
If Putin does touch down in South Africa, he will be closely guarded by the SA Presidential Protection Services, according to international standard protocol.
Asked whether the more junior Leap officers would come off second best against the highly-skilled presidential unit officers, Winde’s spokesperson Regan Thaw said: “Leap officers would in any event act responsibly, being sure to avoid violence. They have effected more than 14 000 arrests to date since their inception.”
Commenting on Winde’s threat, consulate-general of the Russian Federation in Cape Town, Aleksei Malenko, said Russia did not recognise the ICC’s decisions and “considers them legally null and void”. And he was confident Pretoria would make a “wise decision”.
“First of all, it should be noted that there are two international organisations – the UN International Court of Justice, which is one of the six main bodies of this organisation, designed to resolve international disputes, and the ICC, whose decisions often reflect the interests of a narrow group of countries and are aimed at limiting the state sovereignty and now at carrying out blatantly provocative actions,” he said.
He added: “Anyway, as far as we understand, the whole country – not its part – is considered as an ICC member (sic). That is why we focus on well-balanced decisions of the South African government.”
Malenko said Russia was confident that the “positive stance” South Africa had taken – to boost co-operation with Russia – laid a “solid ground” for them to believe that Pretoria would take a wise decision, despite “politically tinged démarches of one or another organisation that claimed to be universal, but de facto it isn’t”.
Spokespeople for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation could not be reached for comment yesterday. However, the government reiterated its position that peace in the Ukraine must be achieved through negotiations.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said earlier this week the ICC’s laws were contradictory.
“Putin is coming to South Africa. He must be arrested by us because we are ICC, but equally the same ICC does say no head of state can be arrested in another country. Government is given a mandate by the ANC to deal with this matter. But where we stand as the ANC, Putin can come here any time.”
soyiso.maliti@inl.co.za