South Africa Under Pressure to Clarify Possible Visit of Putin to Johannesburg for BRICS Summit Amid Arrest Warrant Concerns

• Robert Chesal

  foreign editor

South Africa is feeling increasing pressure to clarify the possible visit of Russian President Putin to Johannesburg. In August, the country will host the next BRICS summit, where heads of state from fast-growing economies will meet. The BRICS countries are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

If Putin leaves Russia to attend the summit, he is at risk. The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against him in March for alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, including deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. According to the South African government, Putin is still on the list of invitees. That causes unrest.

South Africa is saddled with the issue because the country recognizes the International Criminal Court and is therefore obliged to comply with arrest warrants issued by the court. “South Africa must do what the Rome treaty stipulates,” says researcher Thijs Bouwknegt of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD). “That is very clear in this case. They must arrest Putin.”

The question of whether that will happen is being asked more and more – so often that the agenda of the BRICS summit is overshadowed. During a preliminary meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in Cape Town yesterday and today, many questions from journalists centered on Putin. And so not about the expansion plans of the BRICS, which would like to form an alternative to the G7 and other partnerships that are mainly Western.

And so Pretoria is now in a difficult position. The BBC pulled out an anonymous source – a senior government official – who said that South Africa is even toying with the idea of ​​moving the summit to another BRICS country. To get rid of the Putin problem. Russia immediately dismissed that as a fabrication.

According to South African deputy minister Obed Bapela, a new law is being drafted that would allow the country to decide for itself when a suspect – even after an international arrest warrant – should be arrested. Then Putin could come to Johannesburg this summer with impunity.

But others don’t like that. The country’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has asked a judge to issue an order to arrest Putin if he sets foot on South African soil.

It has never happened so far that a suspect of war crimes or crimes against humanity has been arrested by a country where the suspect has visited as a guest. Thijs Bouwknegt, international law expert, knows of two cases in which a suspect was able to visit another country undisturbed.

“In 2015, Omar al-Bashir was visiting South Africa while suspected of crimes against humanity in Sudan. In 2003, the warlord Charles Taylor visiting Ghana for peace talks when he was charged with war crimes in Sierra Leone,” says Bouwknegt. In both cases, the suspect was able to leave the host country as a free man.

There are few consequences for countries that ignore such arrest warrants, he says. “The International Criminal Court cannot impose a punishment on a member state that violates the treaty. There is no fine or other punishment. .”

South Africa is sensitive to that, thinks Bouwknegt. “That is why I suspect that things will turn out differently with Putin than with Bashir’s visit. Some South African judges wanted to have Bashir arrested, but then friendly politicians surreptitiously helped him out of the country. Now they see this more in South Africa as a national problem that must be properly arranged in advance.”