SOUTH Africa’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with a few other countries, may have turned foreign policy discussions, especially with countries from the global south, on their heads.
The ruling party's, the African National Congress (ANC), historical relationship with Russia can be traced back to the anti-apartheid struggle, during which the Soviet Union provided support to the liberation movement.
However, as geopolitical dynamics have shifted, the ANC's alignment with Russia has come under scrutiny, particularly in the face of international pressure to take a firm stance against Russia's actions in Ukraine.
This has placed South Africa's government in a difficult position, torn between honouring its historical ties and responding to calls for accountability on the global stage.
Accountability includes the pressure to comply with the arrest warrant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as urged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) upon his arrival at the Brics summit that will be chaired by South Africa this August.
During the resistance against apartheid, the ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), found support from the formerly Soviet Union. ANC members had received education and training from them, including military tactics, intelligence, political ideology, and organisational skills.
After apartheid, South Africa’s new government established diplomatic relations with Russia, but with a more diversified foreign policy approach.
While the Department of International Relations (DIRCO) and its minister, Dr. Naledi Pandor, have managed to handle the global pressure and tension (partially caused by America), this is now a conundrum to which the ANC has been trying to find a solution since it was announced in February this year.
Fikile Mbalula, the ANC’s secretary general, told BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur in a May 23 interview that the political party would welcome Putin if he were to come to South Africa.
“If it were according to the ANC, we would want President Putin here even tomorrow. Of course, we will welcome President Putin. We will welcome him to come here as part and parcel of BRICS, but we know that we are constrained by the ICC in terms of doing that,” Mbalula said.
“Putin is a head of state; do you think that a head of state can be arrested anywhere? How many crimes has the UK committed in Iraq?”, he added.
Mbalula’s argument was in response to Sackur’s question on whether the government would follow the ICC’s obligation, following past criticisms of the ICC’s reluctance to arrest figures from the UK or other dominant countries allegedly responsible for crimes against humanity.
However, Professor Thulasizwe Simpson of the University of Pretoria points out that the very ties that the ANC refers to give no credence to the defence of the national government’s neutral stance.
“The historical debt argument is historically illiterate; it misses too much and has too many gaps,” Simpson said.
“I think that the ANC policy is guided by very specific historical memory and its perceived debts to foreign helpers. The solidarity extended to Cuba, for example, would be another example of this,” he said.
Simpson refers to the historical ties that the ANC holds with other nations that have provided various forms of support to them during the struggle against apartheid.
“The country [USSR] that extended solidarity to the ANC during the struggle is the Soviet Union, and that includes Ukraine and Russia, and you still have the question of why we favour one of these two Soviet remnants over the other.
Simpson explained that alliance ties post-1991 were shaky due to the then-Soviet government seeking interests with former prime minister FW de Klerk rather than Nelson Mandela and its economic struggles after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
“The relationship with Russia in the early 1990s doesn't get off to a good start because Russia is in an economic crisis. It's looking to uphold its economic interests and define its foreign policy based on its national interests,” Simpson explained.
“If you're looking at historical background, yes, we had support from the Soviet Union during the liberation struggle. We did not have support from Russia during that critical period when we were making that transition to democracy, which shows that we don't have permanent friends; we only have interests in international foreign policy.
“Now what we're going to do is create a foreign policy based on our own interests. The historical debt thing is more complicated than a lot of these narratives indicate,” he said.
The ANC's stance and neutral position have economic consequences and could potentially bring more. Arresting Putin would have diplomatic repercussions, risking Russia's or the West's wrath as more doubts arise among investors and internal factors complicate the ANC's stance.
How best can the party find its solutions to this? The answers may lie in the same historical ties that the ANC has fervently maintained.