I’ve been following regular stories in Daily Maverick (a reasonably trustworthy ZA publication but increasingly prone to Russophobia**) regarding whether a certain wanted war criminal might attend the BRICS summit later this year. Which South Africa is hosting. So too the preliminary meeting of foreign ministers this Thursday-Friday 1-2 June in Cape Town.
Sergei Lavrov (bless his nicotine-stained fingers and sharp suits) is on his way, shaking hands in Kenya last I heard. No way could he make it without a Rothmans on a longer multi-hour no smoking flight from further North
Briefly posted on this subject at ICC warrant: a BRICS member point-of-view
An update on the situation is outlined here. The reference to ‘gazetted’ refers to the Seff Effrican practice of publishing official decisions in the Government Gazette. (I am allowed to poke fun at the eckscent because I used to have it myself.)
The framing is interesting: Comrades, Arms, potential for conflict between local authorities (magistrates), and regional/national ones. The latter have the way better guns but there’s still plenty of time for unrest to spontaneously arise between now and then. I guess it depends on how many plates MI6 can keep spinning at the same time.
** To quote a think piece elsewhere on the site, scribed by some boy wonder with post-its in they thesaurus (former member of the ANC Marxist Tendency notwithstanding):
South Africa’s foreign policy ought to be able to recognise an illegal invasion by an authoritarian kleptocratic dictator and call it out.