JUSTICE MALALA | SA is part of the problem and will only advocate Russian ‘peace’

South Africa should not be part of the African mission to broker peace in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our country is now so deeply implicated in Russia’s military and diplomatic campaign to paint Ukraine as a warmonger — instead of a victim — that SA is now very nearly a participant in the conflict. On the global stage, SA is now regarded as a firm ally of Moscow.

Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s words on Saturday about achieving peace in the region, the South Africa government, against all credible evidence, believes Russia was justified in attacking a sovereign country.

There is a chance, though extremely slim, that the African Peace Mission to Russia and Ukraine might succeed. It is a slim chance because Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, does not seek peace. He demands total and absolute subjugation of Ukraine. Let’s call him what we know he is: He is a coloniser. Thus, what type of peace settlement do the African leaders envisage? One where Ukraine lives under Russian military rule? One where parts of Ukraine are occupied by Russia forever?

With that said, SA should not be participating in this mission and should not even try pretending to be non-aligned in this conflict. The ANC’s December conference resolution makes this clear, saying that the US “provoked the war with Russia over Ukraine, hoping to put Russia in its place”.

If there was any proof needed that South Africa is totally unsuited for the work of bringing peace to that region, it was when presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told the media this week that the South African delegation to Ukraine did not hear or see a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on Friday.

“It’s very strange that we didn’t hear or see an explosion,” Magwenya told News24. “There's obviously some deliberate misinformation being spread here. People are going on about their day.”

Who will trust us when we are we are prepared to tell Kyiv, a city under bombardment, that it is lying when it is being shelled?

This is incredible. Virtually every credible news source reported the explosions over Kyiv. Later, a Reuters film crew saw the visiting African leaders enter a hotel, apparently seeking refuge in its bomb shelter. Ramaphosa later personally referred to the Russian bombing, carried out at precisely the time that the African leaders were meeting Ukrainian leaders.

With this sort of dissembling and devotion to the Putin narrative, SA should not be allowed near these talks. We are continuing our forked-tongue diplomacy: throwing a veil of secrecy over the Lady R arms saga, claiming the aggressor is the victim and even denying an armed attack on Kyiv witnessed by credible international media. Ramaphosa and the entire SA delegation should be at home, solving our real problems, instead of shilling for Putin across the globe.

After 1994 South Africa was the darling of the world. Cyril Ramaphosa, Roelf Meyer and others were seen as men of integrity who could share with the world insights from making peace in South Africa. In a deeply divided and troubled Northern Ireland, for example, Ramaphosa and Meyer were invited in to help broker peace.

These men were seen as peacemakers, not dissemblers who claimed to be non-aligned while allegedly aiding and abetting colonisers at the same time. South Africa’s integrity was hard-won, and its leaders — from Nelson Mandela brokering peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo to those helping in The Troubles — used it with care. Trust and integrity are hard to build. Integrity lost is hard to regain. Trust that is squandered may never return.

This is the problem for SA today. Who will trust us when we are we are prepared to tell Kyiv, a city under bombardment, that it is lying when it is being shelled? The ANC likes to quote the late anti-colonial leader, Amilcar Cabral, of Guinea-Bissau: “Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.” It may be time for the ANC to listen to this hero of anti-colonial struggles.

So what now? The African mission seems dead in the water. On Saturday, after presentations from the leaders of the Comoros, Senegal and Ramaphosa, Putin interrupted their opening remarks and told them their 10-point plan was misguided.

He took no responsibility for the hardship his attack on Ukraine was wreaking across the African continent. Instead, he told Ramaphosa and the other leaders that Ukraine and the West had started the conflict. He said the West, not Russia, was responsible for the rise in global food prices that were a direct result of his invasion of Ukraine.

Putin treated the African leaders like misguided little schoolboys. He told them any peace settlement must take into account “new realities”. These new realities, for him, are that he will not leave any Ukrainian territories that Russia illegally occupies. This is not a man who seeks peace.

Peace will one day come to Ukraine, but that won’t happen through a compromised South Africa’s intervention. SA must leave the stage. We are now part of the problem.