On Sunday 28 May, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, nominated a independent commission of inquiry to investigate its own government’s alleged supply of weapons to Russia. The decision responds to allegations made against the South African government on May 11 by the US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety.
The weapons, according to Brigety’s statements, would have been loaded onto the Russian merchant ship Lady R in December 2022 while docked at Simon’s Town, a South African naval base near Cape Town. Were Brigety’s allegations true, South Africa would have undermined its official non-aligned stance on the war in Ukraine, sanctioned last year by its refusal to vote on a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In recent months there had already been signs of South Africa approaching Russia, not only in the commercial or diplomatic sphere. In February, for example, they had been made naval exercises between the South African Navy and Russian and Chinese warships in South African territorial waters. The decision to keep them had greatly worried Western countries, but the criticisms had been rejected by South Africa, which had underlined that, for example, the previous November it had carried out a joint military exercise with France.
The South African government has denied that there was any deal to supply arms to Russia. Vincent Magwenya, spokesman for the president, he said that Brigety’s allegations are not supported by evidence and that they constitute a “counterproductive public attitude that undermines the very positive and constructive exchanges between the two delegations”.
However, the government had guaranteed that it would set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate. The commission will consist of three members: lawyer Leah Gcabashe, former minister Enver Surty and retired judge Phineas Mathale Deon Mojapelo, as chair. They will have to verify whether Brigety’s accusations are founded, but also clarify the docking of the ship in South Africa in December, another circumstance on which there is no clear and transparent reconstruction.
The ship Lady R is subject to penalties by the United States as related to the Russian company Transmorflt LCC, sanctioned because it was involved in the transport of weapons to Russia. She had docked at Simon’s Town on 6 December and departed for Russia on 9 December.
The ship’s docking had not been reported by the maritime traffic tracking systems: in fact, at that moment the Lady R had deactivated the AIS, i.e. the ship tracking system, similar to a GPS, which commercial ships are required to always keep active. The system had only been reactivated on Monday 10 December, that is when the ship had already left Simon’s Town. As to why the AIS was turned off, no official explanations were ever given. According to some, it would have been a way to prevent the ship from being traced and therefore from discovering that South Africa had allowed a US-sanctioned ship to dock.
But despite the apparent secret arrival, the ship’s docking was witnessed by many people present on the spot, and much commented on in the following days. Above all, the opposition parties to the African National Congress, the party of President Cyril Ramaphosa, had spoken about it, and had asked the government for explanations. The first partial clarification it had been done two weeks after the Lady’s departure from South African Defense Minister Thandi Modise. She said the vessel had only delivered an old order of ammunition intended for the South African military, placed before the pandemic, and that nothing had been loaded on the vessel in the port of Simon’s Town.
However, Modise’s words had not satisfied the opposition, who had insisted on asking for the establishment of a commission of inquiry to clarify who was aware of the ship’s arrival and what goods it was carrying. The work of the Commission will last six weeks – which can be extended – at the end of which a report will be drafted to the President within two further weeks. It will include recommendations to the government on measures to be taken in the event of violations or non-compliance with constitutional, legal or other obligations.