JOHANNESBURG—When Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and Senegal’s Macky Sall disembarked at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport on the morning of June 16, they were each accompanied by 12 bodyguards.
Comorian President Azali Assoumani’s entire security detail consisted of two men.
The leaders were part of the African Peace Mission to Russia and Ukraine.
Hichilema, Sall, and Assoumani and their entourages proceeded with minimal fuss to connecting flights to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later that day.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (L) pose for a photo during a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 17, 2023. Evgeny Biyatov/Photo host Agency RIA Novosti via AP
The president heading the mission, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, arrived in the Polish capital with 120 security operatives, including special forces soldiers.
“That’s completely unprecedented; I’ve never, ever heard of that large a number of security personnel traveling with an African president,” said Rory Steyn, a private security consultant.
Steyn served as chief bodyguard for South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela, heading the Presidential Protection Unit (PPU) in the 1990s.
He told The Epoch Times that the squad he commanded had “a dozen” members.
Poland’s government said Ramaphosa’s “militia” was also carrying 12 containers of ammunition and firearms, including heavy-caliber “weapons of war.”
Given these “unusual” circumstances, said the Poles, they could not allow the “small army” of South African security personnel to continue their journey.
Ramaphosa’s security chief, Major-General Wally Rhoode, launched a vitriolic attack on the Polish authorities, accusing them of racism (but failing to explain why the Poles had not been “racist” to the other African entourages).
Stanislaw Zaryn, director of Poland’s National Security Department, told The Epoch Times: “It’s nonsense [that we were racist against the South Africans]. Fact is the [South African] government, they did not [complete] required documentation for this large force to travel.”
He added that Ramaphosa’s security detail also did not have the necessary permits for their weapons and ammunition.
“Passengers with illegal weapons, no matter who those passengers are, we will not allow them into the EU [European Union]. We are a country with laws. Our airport officials made a compromise and said, ‘We will allow everyone off the plane and to travel to Kyiv, but you must leave firearms and ammunition [behind].’ The South Africans refused,” said Zaryn.
Rhoode did not respond to a request for a reaction to Zaryn’s comments.
President-elect Hakainde Hichilema gives a press briefing at his residence in Lusaka, Zambia, on Aug. 16, 2021. Patrick Meinhardt/AFP via Getty Images
After being confined for more than 26 hours in the South African Airways Airbus, Rhoode and his 120-strong force were allowed to book into a hotel, without their weapons.
Ramaphosa, meanwhile, proceeded to Kyiv accompanied by a few officials, including just two armed guards.
His spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, then posted a video emphasizing that Ramaphosa’s security had “not been compromised.”
Magwenya’s communication unleashed a storm of criticism in South Africa, focused on why the need for a huge protection force in the first place if the president was safe with just two bodyguards.
Rhoode and his fellow officers, plus their containers of weapons and ammo, returned to South Africa the following day.
By that time both Zelenskyy and Putin had dismissed the African leaders’ proposals.
One of the African suggestions was for an effective “freezing” of conflict, meaning Russia would retain parts of Ukraine it had seized during the war.
Zelenskyy told the African leaders that peace talks could happen only when the Kremlin withdrew its forces from Ukraine, which Putin said would never happen.
Steyn said it appeared as if the “fiasco” in Warsaw had happened because Pretoria had indeed neglected to follow protocol.
“When we worked with our president, we as the Presidential Protection Unit would tell the Department of Foreign Affairs how many people are traveling, and with what weaponry.
“Foreign Affairs would contact our embassy in the country to which we’re traveling and that embassy will contact the local authorities to say, ‘These are the people coming and these are the weapons they wish to bring; can we please receive authorization?’ Nobody should leave the shores of South Africa without such authorization.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (R) and Polish President Andrzej Duda (L) meet after Zelenskyy's visit to Washington, at Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport, Poland, on Dec. 22, 2022. Jakub Szymczuk/KPRP/Handout via Reuters
Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, maintained that the African National Congress (ANC) government had “received all necessary authorization.”
“We did everything properly; we followed all necessary protocols,” she told The Epoch Times.
Ntshavheni, however, refused to provide documentation to show that the Polish government had, indeed, provided the required authorization.
She also declined to explain the Ramaphosa administration’s reasons for dispatching such a large and heavily armed security detail to Eastern Europe for peace talks.
The ANC has close ties with Moscow, while Poland supports Ukraine and the West.
In May, Poland became the first NATO country to supply Kyiv with fighter jets.
Also in May, United States ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, accused Pretoria of loading a sanctioned Russian ship with weapons and ammunition at a naval base near Cape Town in December last year.
According to U.S. intelligence agencies, the arms were then shipped to Russia for use in Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.
Pretoria described the American intelligence and Brigety’s claims as “false.”
Ramaphosa has appointed a retired judge to investigate Washington’s claims, but has caused a public and political furore in South Africa by indicating that the judge’s final report will not be released publicly for “national security reasons.”
An analyst for Africa’s most credible portal for military-related affairs, defenseWeb, Dean Wingrin, suggested another reason for the Warsaw standoff.
He told The Epoch Times Poland bought a consignment of weapons from South Africa in 2021, but Pretoria had not delivered the shipment.
“South Africa has a policy of not supplying arms to countries in active conflict. Thus South Africa will not export arms to Ukraine; official policy is they’ll not export arms to Russia. But they’re also extending this policy to include Poland. They’re denying Poland arms because they fear these arms will then be transferred to Ukraine,” said Wingrin.
Independent political analyst, Prince Mashele, said the Warsaw incident raised a lot of questions.
“The South African government seems to be suggesting that its mission to Ukraine and Russia was sabotaged. If so, who did the sabotaging? Was it a plot by the West because South Africa is perceived to be in the Russia camp?” he told The Epoch Times.
“To me, like to most other commentators, it doesn’t look like there’s any dark conspiracy against South Africa.
“It looks more like the typical ineptness and lack of organization that has come to typify the ANC.
“If the papers of the large force of bodyguards were in order, why doesn’t the government just show them to us? Then we can all turn our attention to Poland and demand answers from them.”
The African Peace Mission, said Mashele, was “dead in the water” before it began.
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt, gives a press conference in Addis Ababa on March 24, 2015. Zacharias Abubeker/AFP/Getty Images
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, and Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso all pulled out.
Sassou Nguesso summed up their concern when he attempted to postpone the peace mission on the grounds that the launch of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia had made a visit to Kyiv “dangerous.”
His concern seemed justified when Ramaphosa and other mission members were forced to shelter in bunkers upon their arrival in Kyiv, amid a Russian missile attack.
Comedically, Magwenya denied that this had happened, even as the news was spreading across international news wires. Hours later his boss confirmed it during his meeting with Zelenskyy.
John Steenhuisen, the leader of South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), said Ramaphosa and his entourage had “disgraced” South Africa on the global stage.
“Not only did the Presidency lie about being unaware of missile strikes on Kyiv while Ramaphosa’s so-called peace mission was in town, but his administration’s sheer incompetence caused a planeload full of his bodyguards, journalists and apparently unauthorized weapons to be denied entry to both Poland and Ukraine.
“Cyril Ramaphosa must be held accountable for the millions of rands in taxpayer funds wasted on his failed PR stunt,” Steenhuisen wrote in a media statement.
“We will also be submitting a question to the president asking whether he stands by the cries of racism leveled at Polish authorities by his disgraced security chief, Wally Rhoode. Covering up its own incompetence by shouting ‘racism’ is something the ANC is used to at home. But on the global stage, it will simply hasten our country’s return to a pariah state.”
The DA claimed that the African Peace Mission was “nothing but an ANC construct designed to spin the utterly incompetent Ramaphosa out of trouble over his ongoing support for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.”
Steenhuisen told The Epoch Times that Ramaphosa’s “ego trip” to Eastern Europe was a “monumental failure. The Ukrainian president rightly rejected his naive so-called peace plan for the theatrics it is.”
But Ntshavheni insisted the mission had been “hugely successful.”
“We have opened doors for Africa and for others to continue efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict in Ukraine. We are not deterred by all the negativity around our efforts. The unfortunate incident at the airport in Warsaw was just a small matter,” she commented.
Ironically, said Mashele, South Africa’s “crazy junket” to Eastern Europe may have achieved an unexpected outcome: Bringing Pretoria closer to the West.
“Both Zelenskyy and Putin were clearly less than happy with what Ramaphosa had to say. In fact, Putin treated Ramaphosa and the other African leaders with disdain. Maybe this showed the Western alliance that Africa is not as close to Moscow as previously thought.”
