South Africa confirmed on Thursday, June 29, that the upcoming BRICS summit will be held as proposed on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, putting to rest the uncertainty which arose after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
South Africa, being a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, is duty bound to execute the arrest warrant against Putin if he lands in the country.
The ICC had issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March over allegations of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine, as well as other war crimes committed there. Putin has denied these allegations.
Reuters quoted South Africa’s Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor as saying that Putin has not yet confirmed whether he will attend the summit in person, and he may join in virtual mode.
South Africa has been pressured by the United States and other Western countries to abandon its stance of neutrality with respect to the war in Ukraine and abide by the sanctions imposed by them on Russia. The United States had also accused South Africa of supplying weapons to Russia.
South Africa has denied the U.S. allegations and refused to take sides in the war, maintaining that economic and political relations with both the West and Russia are significant for the African nation.
In June, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led an African delegation to both Ukraine and Russia to push for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
South Africa joined BRICS in 2011 as its fifth member. The grouping also includes Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The upcoming gathering would be the 15th summit of BRICS countries, which have vowed to create a more equitable and multipolar world system and counter Western economic and political hegemony.
More than a dozen countries have applied for BRICS membership recently, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina, indicating the growing popularity of the grouping as an alternative to West-dominated international forums.
The Communist Party of Swaziland says Mswati police shot 21-year-old party member Mvuselelo Mkhabela at close range, as the monarchy attempts to enforce what the party refers to as “unpopular sham election processes.” / credit: Twitter / CPSwaziland
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) reported on February 28 that the police force of Africa’s last absolute monarchy has shot and disappeared one of their members, Mvuselelo Mkhabela, age 21. “Comrade Mvuselelo was badly shot at and dragged to the police van helplessly and his whereabouts and condition is unknown and the armed to teeth police force continued its attacks to the protesting community,” CPS tweeted. Reportedly this abduction happened at around 13:00h (local time) on February 28.
This latest act of violence by the Swaziland police force comes amid an uptick in police repression of recent protests against the “farcical” parliamentary elections. CPS claims that the elections are a farce because the parliament itself is under the control of the monarchy, so the electoral process constitutes “a tool used by the absolute monarchy to sanctify King Mswati’s decision.” Mvuselelo himself was arrested and tortured earlier this month for protesting these elections, which are set to occur this August. Shortly after his arrest, Mvuselelo told Peoples Dispatch, “Often, when [police] invade communities, there is no one to defend the family or the individual from the wrath of the regime. This cannot go on.” Mvuselelo was abducted today in one such police invasion.
Communists in Swaziland have been involved in a struggle against the monarchy for decades. In recent months, the regime led by King Mswati III has intensified attacks against pro-democracy activists, including the assassination of human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko, threats against union leader Sticks Nkambule, torture of union leader Mbhekeni Dlamini, and more.
“Mvuselelo’s consciousness and commitment to the just course of the people of Swaziland fighting for democracy in the face of a militarized system of oppression presided by Mswati and his political elites remains unwavering,” CPS wrote in a tweet.
South Africa wants peace between Ukraine and Russia. That was the message from the head of the country’s ruling ANC party, during a feisty interview with the BBC. Fikile Mbalula also stressed his party would welcome the Russian President if he attended the… pic.twitter.com/prUckb7xI6
South Africa wants peace between Ukraine and Russia. That was the message from the head of the country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party during a contentious interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Fikile Mbalula also stressed his party would welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin if he attended the upcoming BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Durban, South Africa. That’s despite the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Digital news outlet African Stream breaks it down.
People take part in a protest against the military offensive led by Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar, at Martyrs’ Square in Tripoli, Libya, on May 17, 2019 / credit: Xinhua/Amru Salahuddien
Editor’s Note: The following opinion was first published in Black Agenda Report.
If U.S. imperialism could only be said to be one thing, it is audacious. Recently U.S. rulers have been making a fuss over Russian troops on their own border with Ukraine, while 1,000 U.S. National Guard soldiers were deployed to the Horn of Africa, in countries where the U.S. shares no borders and is actually more than 7,396 miles away.
Ever since its government was destroyed in 2011 in the first operation of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), Libya has been the quintessential victim of U.S. audacity in Africa. Now, led by the United States, Western officials have been talking up a UN-led peace process in Libya that insists on “inclusive” and “credible” elections starting on December 24, despite serious disputes over how they should be held.
Of course the Libyan people should have the right to decide their leaders, forms of government, and politics. In fact, however, it is extremely difficult to see through the murk created by the inhumanity of the U.S.-EU-NATO axis of domination.
But what sort of process for nominating candidates are the Libyan people able to exercise? How credible and inclusive can an election be that is cast in the midst of a civil war and with the United States presiding over the country’s affairs like a Godfather?
The imperialist structure responsible for leading the overthrow of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , AFRICOM, just backed the election efforts of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Richard Norland. This was after Norland took to Twitter to scold those discrediting the elections saying, “We call on all parties to de-escalate tensions and to respect the Libyan-led, legal, and administrative electoral processes underway.”
For these emissaries of empire, such statements are mere words of formality, empty rhetoric meant to minimize the glare of the contradiction: they created a failed state.
Reports have surfaced about the likely re-emergence of violence which has been on pause during a very fragile ceasefire. There have been stolen voter cards , an allegedly politically motivated disqualification of 25 of the 98 presidential hopefuls by the election commission, a chaotic appeals process, and, of course, a delay in the final list of candidates.
Then there were also the road blocks by gunmen backing eastern military chief and former CIA operative Khalifa Haftar to prevent travel to a court in the southern city of Sebha set to examine the appeal by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to run for president. It is no surprise that Haftar himself is also a presidential candidate.
Initially Saif al-Islam, son of the murdered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was being excluded from a bid for presidency by the High Elections Commission. Before a Libyan court ruled on December 2 that Gaddafi can run for president, the case had endured an armed attack on the Sebha Court of Appeals followed by a protest in front of the Sebha Court at the end of November, organized by the people of the city of Ghat against the closure of the court by force.
The protesters, in support of Saif Gaddafi, demanding free and fair elections, and an impartial judiciary said, “…there are those who want to occupy the country and restore colonialism again, and who threaten to divide the country according to the interests of the international powers.”
Black and Brown people of the Global South know full well about what the protesters from Ghat are protesting. The capitalist, white surpremacist order has to disparage people-centered projects and legitimize anything in the interest of racist neoliberalism.
Some of the most transparent and participatory elections in the world, in Nicaragua and Venezuela, are denounced and demonized by the same international powers, its institutional extensions like the OAS, and its corporate media mouthpieces. Beneath that newswire is the irony of a Libya literally destroyed by the same forces. Now, ten years later, it is being forced into a largely illegitimate process.
The title “dictator” is bandied around for all leaders not compliant to Western interests, as was commonly done to the late Muammar Gaddafi. A common sense question one might ask is: Why go through such lengths to prevent the candidacy of the son of a dictator supposedly intent on reestablishing his father’s dynasty?
Once the non-white working class inside the belly of the beast realize that the United States is an undemocratic oligarchy that cannot pretend to offer, to the rest of the world, a nonexistent “democracy,” then it will begin to see that the internationalist fight to support the people of Libya is the same as the domestic fight to liberate those struggling for justice.
