ANC slams Poland over disembarkation stand-off

THE REFUSAL by Polish authorities to allow a delegation of about 120 South African police officers, soldiers and journalists to disembark from their chartered flight has been described as disturbing and a violation of human rights by the ANC.

The group, which was part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African peace mission to Ukraine and Russia, was denied entry into Poland on Thursday as Polish authorities reportedly refused to allow them to disembark at Chopin Airport in the capital Warsaw.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said that despite not having all the facts, it was nonetheless disturbing that South Africans were not allowed to disembark.

“This is unheard of. What did these people do? What did they do that a country like Poland will act in such a manner that will not allow, on the basis of human rights, people to disembark from an aeroplane.

“It is disturbing that only after 24 hours they were actually allowed out. We’ve got reports left and right, but we hope to get a proper account from our deployees in this instance about what happened there.

“It is disturbing and we are in solidarity because people who are on that mission, particularly journalists, who are there to inform us about the developments so that we make up our minds about whether or not work that is being done will add to anything,” Mbalula said.

According to media reports, Polish authorities had raised concerns over the weapons and ammunition of the Presidential Protection Unit on board the chartered aeroplane as these were illegal in Poland.

Mbalula added that it was heartening to see that others forming part of the delegation had managed to reach Kyiv on Friday where Ramaphosa engaged with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On Saturday, Ramaphosa headed to St Petersburg where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He said that the Polish incident should not detract them from focusing on the bigger issue of why Ramaphosa and the African delegation of leaders had gone to eastern Europe, which was to negotiate for peace between Russia and Ukraine.

“As the ANC we support the mission, we need to speak to both sides. It’s very important, we need to understand South Africa’s position. People say we don’t take a stand, but we have taken a stand against the war and that is what is important.

“If you look at the composition of the delegation you will realise that there are countries that have clearly been on the side of Ukraine and we have been non-aligned in terms of this and we have been accused for our anti-war position, to a point where we have been accused of being pro-Russia. We have never been pro-Russia,” Mbalula said.

He said that they had explained to the Americans that they had never been pro-Russia and that South Africa’s diplomatic channels were open yet the country was now being threatened in terms of trade simply because South Africa must be “coerced to take a particular stance”.

“We are against the war, the United Nations empowers individual countries in its charter to stand for territorial integrity. This message has been communicated to Russia, will be communicated as well to Ukraine by acting in the context of working with other African leaders and within the multilateral approach of ensuring that we need to work for peace,” Mbalula said.

He said that taking sides would not help South Africa by arming one group against the other as nobody would win.

“It is important that Russia and Ukraine must come to the party and find a solution. We support the mission,” Mbalula said.

Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, national police spokesperson, said that the SAPS had noted with concern the developments surrounding the trip by the security detail assigned to the president on his trip to Russia.

“Police at this stage are not at liberty to confirm or comment on any aspect of this trip as it remains a security matter which the SAPS does not publicly comment on,” Mathe said.

SABC journalist Samkele Maseko, who was part of the delegation, tweeted on Friday that the Polish government had informed their pilots that they wanted to open cargo in the plane to see what was in there.

“The Presidential Protection Unit crew came with their tools of trade (weapons) to protect the President in Ukraine. There has been an issue of the Polish government wanting original permits of the weapons and not copies. They wanted to confiscate the weapons yesterday evening and thus they were taken back to the plane,” said Maseko in a tweet.