SA remains silent as West turns on Russia

Spotlight

AS 24 western countries expelled 122 Russian diplomats, South Africa remained noticeably silent, while our Brics partner, China, called on the West to abandon its confrontation with Russia and abide by international law.

Cuba has also spoken out against the expulsion of Russian diplomats, saying that unilateral measures may threaten international stability.

South Africa’s other Brics partners, Brazil and India, have tried to steer clear of the raging controversy by not pronouncing on the matter.

South Africa, Brazil and India can afford to maintain their neutrality on this issue, seeing it is far removed from the regions of the south, although in the event of a new Cold War emerging between East and West, things may get more complicated.

The retaliatory measures taken by western countries are not merely about the assumed Russian poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England, but a reaction to a broader set of Russian actions in recent years that have been perceived by the West as aggressive and destabilising.

In that sense, the poisoning of the Skripals was the last straw.

Preceding the Skripal incident was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement in his state of the nation address on March 1 that Russia had developed a new regime of nuclear weapons far superior to those of the West, weapons that could evade US and Nato defences.

Then there are the lingering tensions with the West over Russia’s military involvement in Syria on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-assad, its annexation of Crimea and the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 in 2014.

But if a new Cold War is on the cards, it will not be like the one that followed World War II, which centred on the grand ideological battle between communism and capitalism, and the race to export those ideological systems abroad.

Given the rise of China to a position of a global economic superpower that has already surpassed the US, juxtaposed against a largely stagnant Europe, South Africa has aligned itself with the axis of greater economic promise.

India and Brazil are also emerging powers, which are recognised as having increasing global influence.

But a new Cold War may require South Africa, India and Brazil to take more defined positions on controversial issues and be more vocal in defending their Brics partners.

This will ultimately put them in a difficult position, given that Europe and the US remain significant trading partners of all three countries.

The question will then become whether Brics is more than an economic partnership and whether India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stewardship will be prepared to offend its American allies.

Further fissures in Indo-chinese relations could then be exposed.

For now it has not reached that point. The US has assured its ally, India, that it does not expect the the Skripal controversy to affect India’s strong relations with Russia.

The US has extended no such assurance to South Africa, but then South Africa does not seem to feature on the US foreign policy radar screen.

All South Africa can do for now is to issue a strong official statement that matters of international dispute, such as the Skripal incident, be dealt with in the context of existing multilateral forums such as the UN Security Council, not unilaterally.

Cuba has made an important point, that western nations’ unilateral response to the incident pose a threat to international stability.

Russia has already promised to retaliate beyond expelling 23 British diplomats and the measures it takes may further escalate the diplomatic crisis.

The centrality of the UN in dealing with matters of international peace and security is very much at stake.