Johannesburg - The DA’s insistence on compelling the South African government to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he attends the BRICS Summit in South Africa has been slammed.
On Tuesday, the DA launched a court application in the Gauteng High Court requesting a declaratory order to effect the arrest of the Russian President should he step into the country for the BRICS Summit in August this year.
In a statement, DA shadow minister of justice and constitutional development, Glynnis Breytenbach called for Putin to be jailed due to the warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March this year over the alleged illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.
"If President Vladimir Putin arrives in South Africa to attend the BRICS Summit, and upon receipt of a request from the ICC to arrest Putin, the South African government must immediately detain and surrender President Putin to the ICC," Breytenbach said.
The former prosecutor for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the party wants to avoid a repeat of the Al-Bashir saga, when the South African government failed to uphold its duty to make an arrest when he was in the country in 2015.
However, on Tuesday, African People's Convention (APC) president Themba Godi, who was speaking to Newzroom Afrika, said the APC rejects the DA’s call for Putin to be arrested, saying this was akin to "coercive diplomacy".
"South Africa had to extricate itself from a pseudo-legal and essentially geo-political move. How does South Africa arrest Putin? I mean. It is not possible. It puts SA in a very difficult position before the ICC. Besides that, there is a very strong perception about the role of the ICC. Its bias and the haste with which the warrant of arrest was issued," Godi said.
He added that there is no strong case to be made on behalf of the ICC, which has been accused of applying its will inconsistently to sovereign countries as an instrument of dictating to mostly third-world countries while failing to act against Western countries accused of the same war crimes.
"The substance and basis of this warrant of arrest are so ridiculous. You will not miss the fact that this is part of a geo-political struggle between the West, the Russians, and South Africa, and SA gets caught in the crossfire," he said.
Godi added that the move by the DA is uncalled for as it serves western interests at the expense of the country’s interests and stance.
"The move by the DA is very reprehensible. It demonstrates that consistently, the DA stands for all that is wrong and negative in our country. It seeks to embarrass the country internationally, and it seeks to always act in ways that are not in the best interests of the country," he said.
African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) deputy president Wayne Thring said South Africa deserves to be given the freedom to exercise its sovereignty as a nation-state.
"Our position as APC has been clear. South Africa is a sovereign country, and the sovereignty of the nation must be protected at all costs," he said.
The Star