JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
South Africa will next month go ahead with naval exercises off its east coast with Russian and Chinese warships in a decision that could further strain its relationship with some of its biggest trading partners.
Operation Mosi, which means
“smoke”, will take place from February 17 to 26.
South Africa’s reluctance to
condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its decision to allow sanctioned
Russian vessels to dock at its ports have already ramped up tensions with the
US, UK and EU who are backing Ukraine in the conflict.
The opposition party, Democratic
Alliance has questioned the wisdom of going ahead with the exercises.
“This gives the impression of
not being neutral but being biased to one side. Clearly it can alienate us from
important trade partners, the West,” said DA shadow defence minister Kobus
Marais.
“This is in the best interests
of Russia,” Marais said, calling it “another bad judgment, an embarrassment”.
While the exercise follows a
similar event in 2019, it comes about a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, an
event that brought into the open South Africa’s close ties with Russia due to
historical support for the country’s liberation struggle and their membership
of the Brics group of nations.
The US, Germany, Japan and the
UK are leading trading partners for South Africa, while Russia isn’t in the top
15. Spokespeople from South Africa’s defence ministry and navy didn’t answer
calls or immediately reply to emails.
Moscow’s invasion, the biggest
in Europe since World War II, has been widely condemned internationally.
Western governments have hit Russia with diplomatic isolation and heavy sanctions and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine to defend itself.
Steven Gruzd, the head of the Russia-Africa program at the South African Institute of International Affairs, says South Africa’s hosting the drills risks its further isolation from the West while playing into Russia’s hands.
“Russia is trying to indicate
that it’s not isolated internationally, that it has international military
reach. And South Africa, by agreeing to hold these exercises, or going ahead
with them, is feeding into that narrative that Moscow’s putting out,” he said.
South Africa’s African
National Congress party has close ideological and historical ties to Russia
under the Soviet Union, which backed its anti-apartheid struggle against white
minority rule.
South Africa and Russia are
also members of the BRICS group of leading, emerging economies, which includes
Brazil, India, and China.
While many countries have
shunned the Kremlin over its invasion, some nations, including those in BRICS,
have not.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to South
Africa Liubov Abravitova was clear to VOA in her criticism of the scheduled
military drills.
“And on South Africa, Russia,
China military exercises, let me just ask you, what the army that is killing
innocent people, the army of rapists and murderers, what can they bring to
[the] South African army as added value?” she said.
Some analysts say the world is
in a new cold war, with authoritarian nations China and Russia on one side and
Western democracies on the other.
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