JOHANNESBURG — America ambassador to South Africa has accused the nation’s authorities of offering weapons and ammunition to Russia throughout its invasion of Ukraine, escalating the friction between the 2 international locations over Russia and the battle.
The ambassador, Reuben E. Brigety II, advised reporters on Thursday that Washington has purpose to imagine {that a} Russian ship that docked close to Cape City at a South African naval base final December, the Woman R, “uploaded weapons and ammunition.”
“We’re assured that weapons have been loaded onto that vessel and I’ll wager my life on the accuracy of that assertion,” Ambassador Brigety stated, in keeping with a clip of his trade with the information media aired on the South African information channel Newzroom Afrika.
Whereas the US has known as on its allies to sentence and isolate Russia, South African officers have refused to take action, citing the help that the African Nationwide Congress obtained from the Soviet Union within the lengthy combat in opposition to apartheid and saying that they have been sustaining a impartial stance on the preventing in Ukraine.
American and different Western allies, nevertheless, have stated that South Africa has not been impartial and, actually, has backed Russia. Ambassador Brigety’s allegation that Pretoria is offering ammunition to Moscow is essentially the most pointed diplomatic jab but in an more and more tense relationship. He made the feedback throughout a information convention within the capital Pretoria that was open solely to South African media shops.
Quickly after the ambassador’s remarks South Africa’s forex, the rand, which lately had been falling in worth in opposition to the U.S. greenback, continued its plunge.
Clayson Monyela, a spokesman for South Africa’s Division of Worldwide Relations and Cooperation, referred questions concerning the allegations to the nation’s Protection Division and the workplace of the president. Spokesmen for the Protection Division and the president didn’t instantly reply to questions searching for remark.
Ambassador Brigety’s feedback got here a few week after he visited Washington with a delegation of South African officers, who held high-level talks with the Biden administration and lawmakers. The delegation, despatched by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, sought to easy over among the variations between the international locations.
John Steenhuisen, the chief of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s prime opposition occasion, known as the ambassador’s assertion “a chilling and deeply troubling affirmation that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his authorities are actively concerned within the Russian Federation’s battle on Ukraine.”
The docking of the Woman R final yr infuriated the American authorities. In February, a U.S. official advised The New York Occasions that the American authorities believed that rocket propellant and munitions could have been loaded onto the ship, which is beneath U.S. sanctions. South Africa’s protection minister, Thandi Modise, had stated the ship was delivering “an previous excellent order for ammunition.”
Final month, South African officers gave clearance for a cargo aircraft focused by U.S. sanctions for ferrying Russian weapons to land at an air pressure base close to Pretoria. South Africa’s Protection Division stated the aircraft was delivering “diplomatic mail.”
The American authorities has hinted at retaliating in opposition to South Africa whether it is discovered to have aided Russia’s battle effort or helped it to evade sanctions. America has a number of choices, together with issuing sanctions and revoking commerce privileges.
Throughout a visit to South Africa in January, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that the US would reply “shortly and harshly” to governments that violate U.S. sanctions, a message that one other prime Treasury Division official echoed in a gathering with South African representatives finally month’s World Financial institution and Worldwide Financial Fund gathering.
