EFF to take battle against ICC to Parliament

This was confirmed by the party leader Julius Malema in a media briefing on Monday.

Malema has accused the ICC of being “a biased instrument of global imperialism”.

A month ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the media that the ruling party has decided to withdraw South Africa from the ICC which he said was largely because of the unfair treatment of certain countries.

But he later backtracked.

The contradictory statements come after the ICC issued a warrant of arrest against Russian President Vladimir Putin who has been accused of human rights violation over the war in Ukraine.

South Africa will host the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China at the 15th BRICS Summit from 22 to 24 August in Durban.

Although it is unclear whether Putin will attend the summit, the ICC warrant of arrest would require South Africa to arrest Putin if he attends the summit.

But Russia is not a member of ICC and it is not yet clear how the warrant will be enforced.

This would not have been the first time South Africa has threatened to pull out of the court.

In 2016, former President Jacob Zuma wrote to the ICC expressing South Africa's intention to leave the court after refusing to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir who visited the country for the  African Union summit.

But the decision to leave the international court was later overturned after the High Court ruled in favour of the Democratic Alliance, which challenged the government's decision.

Malema, who has already vowed to protect Putin if he decides to visit South Africa, has accused the US of using the ICC as an instrument to pursue narrow political agenda.

"It is clear that the USA seeks the destruction of Russia, and has no interest in a peaceful resolution to the conflict. They preach non-alignment when they are spending billions of dollars to support Ukraine with military equipment," said Malema.

"We as the EFF will be introducing a private members bill in Parliament to effect the withdrawal of South Africa from the International Criminals Court, which has thus far proven to be a biased instrument of global imperialism.

“The ICC did not do anything against former US President George Bush for the war in Iraq and turned a blind eye when Barack Obama and NATO illegally invaded Libya to assassinate Brother Leader Muammar Ghaddafi. South Africa and all African countries must withdraw from the ICC and the EFF will lead that effort," he added.

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