Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula blatantly misled the nation and the international community by publicly stating that the governing party’s national executive committee had decided that South Africa should pull out of the ICC. This was in reaction to the ICC’s move to charge Russian President Vladimir Putin over crimes against humanity committed during his invasion of Ukraine.
Both the presidency and the ANC embarrassingly repudiated the statements of their principals. The ANC had, in fact, reaffirmed a resolution of its own December 2022 conference to recommit to the membership of the ICC and help it improve the fairness of its work. The populism by Ramaphosa and Mbalula was no different from the nonsensical grandstanding by Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, who threatened that the province’s ragtag law enforcement officials would arrest Putin should he visit the Mother City.
Together with the Jacob Zuma-era decision to withdraw from the ICC in defence of Omar Al-Bashir, the butcher of Sudan, protesting the potential arrest of Putin shows just how low we have gone in abandoning our lodestar reputation of standing up for human rights. After all, Putin is waging an indefensible war against a sovereign state and targeting civilian installations.
That the ICC has many deficiencies is not in question. The fact that the architects of the Iraq war have not been indicted is a huge blot on its record. The argument we should dismiss outright is the one that accuses the ICC of bias against African leaders. This is something all Africans should appreciate, given the terror that many of the continent’s leaders subject their citizens to.
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SOWETAN | Ramaphosa must explain ICC errorThe ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa have had their fair share of embarrassing gaffes. But this week’s debacle over a decision on the International Criminal Court takes the cake, not least because it exposes embarrassing incoherence by our leaders on matters of foreign policy.
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