South Africa did not transfer 155 mm artillery shells to Poland, fearing that they would be sent to Ukraine – explained Ezra Jele, head of the secretariat of the South African government institution supervising arms contracts. Poland after two years canceled this contract.
Poland, like several non-NATO countries, in early 2022, just after the invasion Russia to Ukraine, ordered 55,000 Assegai artillery shells from the South African company Denel Munition, a subsidiary of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. – We are very pleased that a NATO member state once again trusted our globally proven technology – Jan-Patrick Helmsen, managing director of Denel Munition, boasted about the contract at the time.
Poland waited for months for missiles from South Africa
However, that same year, the South African National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), operating under the Ministry of Defence and responsible for South Africa's arms contracts, decided to suspending the execution of this order.
The head of the secretariat of this institution, Ezra Jele, explained at the end of last year that permits for the export of ammunition to some countries, including Poland, were not canceled, but only suspended. He did not explain at the time when a decision on their approval or rejection might be made. The value of the Polish order was 893 million rand, or about PLN 190 million. Only the one placed by United Arab Emirates, from which South Africa suspended three of its eighteen permits. Partial exports of weapons and ammunition have also been suspended to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Jele, when asked in 2023 by the South African Parliamentary Defence Committee why the export was suspended despite the lack of a UN Security Council embargo on Poland or Turkey, explained that the problem is the potential redirection of the order. – It is likely that weapons sent to Poland will be transferred to Ukraine, he said. He stressed that when deciding whether to approve or deny the permits, the committee considers many factors, including arms embargoes, human rights violations, regional dynamics that could contribute to destabilization, the risk of arms diversion and South Africa's national interests.
In April last year, the largest opposition party at the time, pro-Western and anti-Russian, became interested in the case. Democratic Alliance. Her Shadow Defense Minister Kobus Marais officially asked Defense Minister Thandi Modise why the export to Poland was suspended. The Minister forwarded this question to the NCACC, which replied laconically that “exports to Poland must meet the NCACC criteria.”
South Africa's ruling party is an ally of Russia
Also in April last year, then Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor hosted Alexander Kozlov, Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, in Pretoria, and the country's ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in an official statement that Putin's “The United Russia party is a long-standing ally and friend of the ANC.”
The financial situation of the ANC, which was preparing for parliamentary and presidential elections last year, also sheds light on South Africa's decision. At the beginning of 2023, the party was in debt and had little ability to finance the election campaign, and could not even afford to organize a pre-election congress. Then, a Russian mining company, Viktor Vekselberg United Manganese of the Kalahari (UMK), which is subject to US sanctions and is close to Putin, appeared and gave the ANC almost a million dollar donation. The opposition said it undermined the party's claim to a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and its refusal to criticise the Russian invasion.
After the May elections, in which the ANC had to share power with opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance, for the first time in 30 years, the country's foreign policy has not changed. Congress kept the most important positions in government for itself, including diplomacy and defense. He also retained pro-Russian sympathies.
The ANC's relations with the Kremlin have been very friendly for decades. During the struggle to overthrow the racist apartheid system in South Africa, the African National Congress received strong support from the Soviet Union and Cuba, while the United States and Great Britain considered it and its leaders terrorists and communists. The United States Congress decided to impose sanctions on South Africa for its apartheid policy only in 1986, a fact that the revolutionary part of the South African party still reminds us of at each of its annual meetings.
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