Mthobeli Jiwulane

With the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa BRICS Summit just over two month away, South Africa, one of Africa’s leading economies, is still caught between a rock and a hard place over hosting the Russian President at the gathering.

An unprecedented raging debate ensues within the country over Pretoria granting immunity to Vladimir Putin to attend the Summit, scheduled for August in Johannesburg. South Africa is attempting to avoid arresting Putin when he lands on its shore in line with a standing request by the International Criminal Court, which issued a warrant of arrest for Russian leader for alleged atrocities in Ukraine.

As a signatory to the Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to implement the provisions of this international protocol including arresting anyone wanted by the ICC. But with its special relationship with Moscow dating back to the time the former Soviet Union supplied military training to South African ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) to fight against the white minority regime that oppressed the black majority using its apartheid system, South Africa is reluctant to oblige.

The dilemma faced by President Cyril Ramaphosa is to please both the United States and Russia and as a result is trying to find a way out the trap. South Africa’s foreign policy is based on non-alignment towards the big powers preferring rather to deal with them equally.

Inside the country, the main opposition Democratic Alliance sides with the US to demand that South Africa must ditch Russia in favour of maintaining strong ties with America, something that Ramaphosa is unwilling to do. Both Ramaphosa and his Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor this week reiterated that South Africa would not bow to any pressure to take sides in the Russo-US tension or break its non-aligned position.

But it’s not only political pressure but also South Africa’s white-dominated big business weigh in on the matter. The captains of industry warned Ramaphosa in their recent meeting about the dire consequences of targeted sanctions that may be imposed by the US for its continued fraternisation with Russia. But the head of state, who had initially been more moderate on the Putin issue than the vociferous Pandor, appeared to have been invigorated to be assertive against the US. He appeared to be on the verge of publicly telling Washington to back off.

Ramaphosa’s toughening stance was influenced not only by the Minister, but by the ruling party. There is a strong school of thought within the ANC that South Africa should side with Russia even with the threat of US sanctions looming.

The President, who is a state-empowered business tycoon, received massive praise from many within the ANC for granting Putin immunity from prosecution during his pending August visit. Within the ruling tripartite alliance comprising the nationalist ANC as its leader and the leftist communists and the labour movement, there is a strong view that South Africa must withdraw from the ICC once and for all.

Pertaining to US sanctions, some experts believe that America would be wary to impose sanctions which would antagonise Pretoria to the extent of wanting to seek refuge with Russia and China. Amidst its pressure on Pretoria, the US would rather have a non-aligned but influential partner like South Africa in Africa.

With South Africa’s economy weakened by electricity load-shedding, corruption and public maladministration, the country is too important strategically for the US which may be reluctant to harden attitudes between it South Africa with sanctions lest that force it move closer to Russia and China.

Political analysts such as Sandile Swana do not believe US sanctions would impact South Africa negatively especial with the rapid growth of BRICS. The analyst says any gap left by America would be easily filled by China and Russia and therefore South Africa wouldn’t fill any anything. But some observers it’s not so simply because if the USA, which is the third largest trading partner with South Africa after China and the European Union, punished South Africa with sanctions, the EU would follow suit and China and Russia would never be able to fulfil all of the country’s economic requirements. 

The latter questioned the sustainability of Beijing’s economic assistance and trade with South Africa while Russia is not even a strong economic power to replace the US should it break up with South Africa. They cautioned that Pretoria should rather stick with the West because all countries that were slapped with Western sanctions previously fell on their knees economically including Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, among others.

A Pretoria-based diplomat with better knowledge of the Chinese situation said China’s hands are so full with obligations to assist the rest of Africa that it would be impossible to fulfill South Africa’s economic needs adequately. Besides China’s foreign aid to any country had never been substantial but always came in small pockets.

With South Africa set to take over the chairship of BRICS at this year summit, there will be a strong push for the country to work closely with China and Russia, which would take over the seat from South Africa in 2024.

South Africa’s chairship comes under the theme “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism”.  This meant Pretoria must lead the growth efforts for the developing nations and continue its push for multilateralism that would see it confronting the American-led unipolarity in the world. From protecting Putin to challenging the US dominance in the world via BRICS, South Africa will move from fire straight into the frying pan.