President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended South Africa’s decision to abstain in the UN General Assembly vote which called for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The decision to abstain has received a lot of criticism as South Africa is accused of fence-sitting.
In the president’s weekly newsletter, Ramaphosa defended his decision and said the resolution did not “foreground the call for meaningful engagement”. “SA expected that the UN resolution would foremost welcome the commencement of dialogue between the parties and seek to create the conditions for these talks to succeed. Instead, the call for peaceful resolution through political dialogue is relegated to a single sentence close to the conclusion of the final text,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa mentioned how South Africa was able to reach an agreement through a successful peaceful dialogue in the transition from the apartheid era into the new democracy. The rational behind refusal to call out Russia is because of the trade between the two countries. In 2021, Russia imported South African products worth R1.3 billion and exported product to South Africa worth R458 million.
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This is nothing when we speak in trading terms, as Russia does not even reach the top 14 trading partners with South Africa. China, the USA, Germany, and Great Britain are the biggest traders with South Africa. It has also been speculated that the reason behind South Africa not voting in favour of the UN resolution is because it does not want to offend China.
Brazil is the only country which was brave enough to vote in support of the motion at the UN General Assembly. South Africa made a decision not to call out the aggressor and Ramaphosa still stands by it.
Source: News24, Daily Maverick, Times Live, image from
