South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced during a joint press conference on Tuesday that the Republic of South Africa was pulling out of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but hours later was forced to row back on his comments.
Late Tuesday evening President Ramaphosa issued a statement that the announcement had been wrong and that South Africa would indeed remain in the court.
President Cyril Ramaphosa had stated during the joint press conference that there is unfair treatment in how the ICC operates, which he said is a view also held by Amnesty International.
"Our view is that we would like this matter of unfair treatment to be properly discussed. But in the meantime, the governing party has decided once again that we should pull out. So, that will be a matter that will be taken forward."
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, issued a statement saying: "The Presidency wishes to clarify that South Africa remains a signatory to the Rome Statute and will continue to campaign for equal and consistent application of international law."
What had actually been spoken about during the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in South Africa over the weekend was simply that the NEC had reiterated its decision to rescind its 2017 decision to withdraw from the ICC, which it made in December of 2022.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Many have interpreted the move as the governing party's last resort to get itself out of the sticky situation regarding the ICC's international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, given that the next BRICS Summit will be held in August in South Africa. Putin has stated that he will be attending, putting South Africa in a position where, under its international obligations, it would need to arrest the Russian leader.
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Now the question remains: Will South Africa fulfil its duty as a member of the ICC and arrest its Russian ally or will it once again fail to arrest a wanted head of state, as it did in 2015 when it failed to arrest Omar al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan?
South Africa's neutrality questioned
South Africa has thus far maintained that its neutrality in Russia's invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine. The country has still not overtly condemned Russia for invading a sovereign country. Furthermore, Russian war ships are docked in South African harbours and, most notably, South Africa hosted a joint naval exercise with China and Russia off its own shores on the anniversary of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Although South Africa has historically taken a non-aligned stance in international affairs and claimed to be doing so again, its neutrality has been called into question, with critics saying that it appears to be enabling war crimes committed by the Kremlin.
