Putin To Skip South African BRICS Summit Due To ICC- Does International Community Realise The Impact Of This Arrest Warrant?

Putin To Skip South African BRICS Summit Due To ICC

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the coming month’s BRICS conference in South Africa in order to prevent the probable spectacle of his arrest pursuant to the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrant due to alleged war crimes. The decision not to make the trip by Putin would be a big relief to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose administration was likely to have faced a legal requirement to arrest Putin upon his arrival in Johannesburg for attending the summit together with his Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, as well as South African counterparts.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, stated on Wednesday that the Russian president will instead participate via video connection, which he said equated to full involvement. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be taking his seat at the BRICS meeting, which begins on August 22, according to Peskov. By mutual understanding, the South African president had already said that Putin would not be attending the conference.

South Africa had increased its attempts to persuade Putin not to accept an invitation granted by Pretoria before the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the Russian leader’s arrest on war crimes accusations in March. Ramaphosa stated in court papers revealed this week that executing the warrant on Putin would risk war with Russia.

However, South Africa’s president stated in the press that his government was well aware of its international legal duties as a member of the international court, even though it contacted the ICC to express concern that an arrest was going to be difficult.

Putin is likely to be the sole Brics leader to skip the summit, as South Africa has stated that the leaders of the nations of Brazil, India, and China are going to participate. It will be the group’s first face-to-face meeting since the coronavirus outbreak. Peskov previously denied that Russia made threats to South Africa with war if it tried to arrest Putin. “This was not said,” Peskov told journalists. He said that there was nothing to explain here.

Without much elaboration, he stated that everybody in the world is aware what an attempt to arrest or take an action against the head of the Russian State is likely to mean. This seems like an indirect warning from Russia to be careful while taking any action towards Putin.

From several months, South African officials were working on backup plans that included a virtual summit, shifting the event to China, which does not constitute a party to the ICC, and having Lavrov participate in Putin’s place. However, authorities finally came to the conclusion that Ramaphosa, who enjoys good connections with Putin, would need to personally persuade Putin to stay away. They stated that Ramaphosa intended to do so during the Russia-Africa conference taking place in St. Petersburg the following week.

Activists in South Africa praised information that Putin will not visit as evidence that their nation takes its ICC duties with seriousness. This contradicts with its inability under Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, to detain Omar al-Bashir, the previously serving president of Sudan, in 2015 despite a court-issued warrant.

The controversy around Putin’s presence is now resolved, which also eliminates a big distraction from the conference where the core Brics countries will discuss enlarging their group and adopting trading currencies other than the US dollar. The meeting is expected to be an enormous success according to President Ramaphosa, his office said on Wednesday.

Can South Africa take a stand against ICC?

Putin’s presence at the meeting could have also been a blow to the ICC, undermining its authority. By mutual understanding, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin will not be present at the Summit, however the Russian Federation is expected to be represented by its Foreign Minister Mr. Sergei Lavrov, Ramaphosa’s office disclosed in an announcement. The meeting will be place in Sandton, an upmarket suburb located approximately twelve miles north of Johannesburg, in August, and Putin will attend via videoconference, according to the Kremlin.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), located in The Hague, has charged Putin with war crimes for his participation in the kidnapping and forcible transit of Ukrainian children to Russian-controlled area. The arrest order, announced in March, has severely limited the Russian leader’s worldwide travel. Despite this, the Kremlin pressured South Africa to come up with an alternative resolution that would have enabled Putin to attend the conference, although South African officials were quick to point out that there really was no simple means for Putin to join the BRICS summit without fearing detention.

South Africa is regarded to be one of Russia’s closest allies in Africa, but Putin’s resolve to take part in the summit had put Pretoria in an impossible position, analysts stated, because failing to detain him would have violated South African law.

South Africa is not only an adhering nation to the Rome Statute, which founded the international court, but it has additionally incorporated the Statute within the South African legislation. Any attempt to circumvent South Africa’s duties by altering or abandoning the legislation would need to pass via the South African Parliament and also might be invalidated by the nation’s Constitutional Court.

In the words of political analyst William Gumede from the University of Witwatersrand School of Governance, chairman of Democracy Works Foundation, Russian pressure on President Putin to be present caused concern within moderates of the ruling African National Congress, despite the fact that younger ANC figures that support Russia along with opposing the West were actually excited for the opportunity to see him arrive on South African soil.

This month, South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile informed South African media that his country wished Putin was not going attend. Mashatile stated that South Africa does not wish to arrest Putin. “That’s why, for us, his not coming is the best solution,” Mashatile explained. The Russians, on the other hand, are not pleased. He stated that they wish him to arrive. At that point, Mashatile stated that Ramaphosa was having talks with Putin in order to prevent him from coming.

“We want to show him the challenges we face because we are bound by the Rome Statute and can’t wiggle out of this,” Mashatile further clarified their stance. Ramaphosa stated that Moscow had informed his administration that arresting Putin would constitute an announcement of war with Russia. He made the declaration in a sworn statement submitted to the Pretoria High Court, which was made publicly available on Tuesday, in response to the opposing Democratic Alliance party’s request that South Africa makes a commitment to arresting Putin if he arrives.

According to Ramaphosa, Russia has made it plain that detaining its incumbent president would amount to a proclamation of war. Risking conflict with Russia would be considered incompatible with their Constitution. Gumede described this as “Moscow bullying” in South Africa. He described it as intimidation and exerting pressure on South Africa, as opposed to an equal relationship with a BRICS country.

Putin has frequently framed the Ukrainian conflict as vital to his quest to undercut US global supremacy and establish a fresh global order. Russia as well as China’s motions to create a world with multiple polarities are gaining traction in Africa, wherein many countries are resentful of Western pressure to select sides in the conflict with Ukraine. Analysts say Putin has made repeated gaffes that have weakened his appeal to Africa, even while he prepared for the summit meeting with African leaders in Russia in the coming days.

These included his abrupt management of an African peace mission this past month, during which he cut off a delegation before they had completed speaking, and Russia’s decision to reimpose a maritime blockade on Ukrainian grain in the midst of rising food costs in Africa and an extreme shortage of food within the Horn of Africa.

An unprecedented drought, violence, as well as rising food and fuel costs have left hundreds of thousands of people in the Horn of Africa in dire need of urgent nutritional aid, in accordance to the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network. According to Gumede, the food blockade will weaken his authority in Africa. Regarding Putin in the wider context of Africa, people are starting to view him in a different way.

There is an unsettling feeling that he may not be as pro-African or operating in Africa’s best interests as many had previously believed. At this month’s conference, African leaders will likely urge Putin to ease the blockade, despite the Kremlin’s continued assertion—refuted by the European Council—that barely three percent of Ukrainian grain penetrated underdeveloped countries.

In the affidavit, Ramaphosa claimed that he was bound by the constitution to uphold the entire rights of South Africans as well as to defend the country’s sovereignty, peace, as well as security. In his testimony before the court, Ramaphosa made it plain that South Africa had engaged in private discussions with the ICC, claiming that the nation was having trouble carrying out its commitment to detain Putin.

In his affidavit, Ramaphosa stated that failing to detain Putin would jeopardize an African initiative aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine. After the arrest warrant, the ICC itself voiced alarm over Russia’s nuclear danger. There is no way for South Africa to start a war with Russia or to fight in one. The president further declared that it does not want to.

When asked if Russia had sent a warning of a declaration of war, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that no such terminology was used. However, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, used precisely these words to express how Moscow would react to any nation’s choice to abide by the ICC warrant in March.

Let us imagine … the current head of a nuclear state went to a territory, say Germany, and was arrested, what would that be? It would be a declaration of war on the Russian Federation. And in that case, all our assets — all our missiles etc. — would fly to the Bundestag, to the Chancellor’s office.

– Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman, Russia’s Security Council

Even pro-Kremlin experts admit that as the Kremlin prepares for this month’s Russia-Africa summit, Moscow has failed to deliver on assurances made to African leaders during the initial Russia-Africa summit of 2019. Many planned initiatives were halted for objective and comprehensible reasons, according to Valdai Club program director Oleg Barabanov in an article about the summit, which includes the war and epidemic.

Russia has deviated from its typical revisionism to mount an open military as well as political threat to Western countries. As a result, African states faced Western pressure to terminate connections with Moscow because of the conflict, and just preserving such links was considered a demonstration of political strength, according to Barabanov.

Therefore, the August conference will bring together Brazil, Russia, India, China, as well as South Africa, forming the BRICS group of developing economies. Officials claimed Putin intended to attend the meeting, but they attempted to convince him not to because of the legal and diplomatic implications from his international arrest warrant. Although Moscow has rejected the warrant and does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, Putin has not visited any nation which has signed the ICC’s treaty since being accused by the international court in March for alleged war crimes connected with the abduction of kids from Ukraine.

After months of speculation, Ramaphosa’s administration announced on Wednesday that Putin would not be attending the BRICS meeting due to a mutual agreement. However, South African officials were making it explicit through strong hints that they would not carry out the arrest order on Putin even if he comes. But in an effort to force the government to detain the Russian leader if he enters their land, the largest opposition party in South Africa has filed a lawsuit against the government. Therefore, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is going to represent Russia at the BRICS conference, according to a statement from Ramaphosa’s office.  It stated that all four of the other presidents, including Xi Jinping of China, will be present.