I usually refrain from making much political commentary.
I will say this: SA is a deeply troubled country, but for once I think the ruling government has actually done a good thing by pursuing this.
replies(6):
I will say this: SA is a deeply troubled country, but for once I think the ruling government has actually done a good thing by pursuing this.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2YY1E6/
SA does not really present itself as an earnest or true actor in the sphere oh human rights.
Well, who does?
Among the major players in world politics I can't see any country with a clean reputation on human rights.
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian, a country with an horrible record of police brutality, of farmers killing indigenous people and environmental activists and an hypocritical ambivalence towards Putin's crimes. And that goes to the previous right-wing and current left-wing governments.
If Putin is arrested in a foreign country, you'll have the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world staring down at the very existence of that nation. No country would do this, however earnest they may be about human rights. Neither will it be fair to expect anyone to do this.
"to avoid war with Russia" was how the rest of that headline went, along with two quotes about how Russia said such an arrest would be considered an act of war.
While I would welcome Putin's arrest, I can't exactly fault South Africa for saying they'd rather not go to war.
Amusingly, the Biden govt had no issues officially supporting the ICC to deliver a ruling against Russia despite the US not being a party to the ICC themselves. That's like having your cake and eating it too.
None of China, India, Russia, and the United States are parties to the ICC.
Nation states are often immoral and hypocritical
The outrage from the USA at the invasion of Ukraine, when the invasion of Iraq is a crime of the same magnitude - both dreadful stains on humanity
Most recently the international support for the actions of the IDF whilst condemning Russian actions in Ukraine
SA is just normal in this regard
Adversarial justice systems are an approach to dealing with the fact that individual actors in a system (including states in the international system) tend to be self-interested rather than earnest or true consistent advocates of the notional rules of the system.
It’s all a tangled mess and I wouldn’t haste to take everything diplomats say at face value.
How many civilians have died in the Ukraine and in Gaza?
"to the genocide/domicide in Ukraine"
That's very frivolous use of the word 'genocide'.
"Now it’s taking Israel to court."
Don't you think that it should have been done by the countries which took Russia to the court? They have done nothing. Strange.
Eh, or not. Putin isn’t Russia. Depending on timing, it might be a convenient time for a change in government. They could then demand his remittance, where he would no doubt get lost along the way or have a change of heart about his place in public policy.
That said, the prudent thing to do is that which was done. Barring Putin from entering South Africa.
Putin is explicitly aiming to destroy Ukrainian national identity, which is genocide. He has disappeared countless people in the occupied territories… literally, countless, no one knows how many because rights orgs don’t operate there. He’s indicted by the ICC for stealing children from occupied territories to solve the Russian “demographic crisis,” and to remove the future generation of Ukrainians. There’s nothing frivolous about this, ask a Ukrainian. See Putin’s many speeches, including from February 24, to this effect, he doesn’t believe Ukrainians or Ukraine has a right to exist, and believed that Ukrainians can be dispensed with like subhumans.
I was certainly against it in 2003. The WMDs were bullshit. A war on "terror" is farcical. The profiteering and the industrial military complex, etc.
But I did later come around to the idea of getting Saddam and his government to stop genociding the Kurds.
Of course you should always assume a country like the US to be self-serving in its actions, but it's not as if it was taking additional land as its own, as is the case with Russia and Israel. Iraq was never going to be the 51st state.
Can you link some credible references for this?
The OHCHR, as of October 2023, listed 10,000 killed and 18,000 wounded.
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/ukraine-civilian-casual...
For that estimate to be off by AT LEAST an order of magnitude as you are claiming requires quite a bit of evidence.
Do you really think that Russian government and military would kill in cold blood tens of millions of people over Putin's fate?
Besides, they would be too busy jockeying for power after Putin is out of the game.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
Bullshit. There was nothing in the resolution that called for war. The most it had said was in tune of - you must comply and if you don't we will report you. No particular enforcement.
the resolution is here - https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/682/26/PDF...
>"it was never firmly established as illegal"
Really? It was an act of aggression. It is illegal by definition unless the UN had explicitly decided otherwise which I believe it did not.
"If you and your kind are the only potential victims I'd say go for it."
That's a lot of hate towards me and 'my kind'.
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
And if you aren't South African, and especially if you live in a country under NATO's nuclear umbrella, you have no business telling them they should risk their lives (for whatever reason).