APA-Pretoria (South Africa) South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has resolved that the country should withdraw its membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the wake of pressure for Pretoria to arrest Russian President Vladmir Putin when he comes for the BRICS summit in August, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday.
Speaking to journalists following a meeting with visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, Ramaphosa said the ANC’s national executive committee meeting last weekend decided that South Africa must pull out of the ICC until the issue of biased handling of cases by the global court is resolved.
“The governing party, the ANC, has taken the decision that it is prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC largely because of the manner in which the ICC has been seen to be dealing with these types of problems,” Ramaphosa said.
He added: “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 again there should be a pull out so that will be a matter that will be taken forward.”
The ICC issued the arrest warrant against Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
There have, however, been concerns that the court is biased in the way it handles alleged war crimes cases, with similar actions by leaders of western nations not attracting the same charges.
A case in point was the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies in 2003, ostensibly in search of weapons of mass destructions (WMDs) held by former president Saddam Hussein’s government.
No such WMDs were ever found but no action was taken against then US president George W. Bush by the ICC despite war crimes committed by the invading forces.
While South Africa is a signatory to the Rome treaty, Russia and the US did not assent to it and are, therefore, not members of the court.
This is not the first time the international court has put pressure on South Africa to arrest a head of state.
In 2015 South Africa did not comply with the ICC’s warrant of arrest for former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, despite a local court order for his arrest.
JN/APA