A delegation of African leaders seeking to bring to peace Ukraine and Russia from their 15-month war says it has gained initial first-hand information about the conflict, defying an early fiasco that accompanied the trip via Poland.
On Friday, Comoros President Azali Azzoumani, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Senegal’s Macky Sall, Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema and Uganda’s former Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda representing President Yoweri Museveni and representatives from Egypt and Congo-Brazzaville, arrived in Kyiv to meet with officials there led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Read: Africa to send peace mission to Russia, Ukraine
According to Vincent Magwenya, the Spokesman of President Ramaphosa, the mission was already gaining knowledge of the source of the problem, to help the African delegation offer a mediation plan.
“The African Peace Mission is proceeding well and as planned. The President arrived safely in Kyiv by train along with other heads of state and he remains safe. The impasse with the charter flight in Poland is being addressed by our officials and their Polish counterparts,” he said.
The leaders first attended a defence ministry briefing at St Micheal’s Square in Mykhailivska where they were told of the Russian atrocities in Ukraine.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘builds confidence’ by launching the largest missile attack on Kyiv in weeks, exactly amid the visit of African leaders to our capital. Russian missiles are a message to Africa: Russia wants more war, not peace,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, referring to shelling near the venue by Russian forces.
Read: Kyiv attacked as African peace mission visits Ukraine
Sabotage claims
But behind the scenes, the Polish government was on Friday fighting back claims of sabotaging Africa’s peace mission to Ukraine and Russia, after a delegation of guards and the media was stopped in Warsaw for lack of proper clearances.
Instead, Warsaw said South Africa’s huge delegation of 120 people aboard a chartered South African Airways plane had members who had no permit to carry guns on Polish soil. An official statement from Poland said on Friday the delegation was required to leave arms on board to clear with customs. Stanislaw Zaryn, the Polish Deputy Minister for Special Services described as “nonsense” accusations of racism against the South African delegation.
“The delegation aboard this plane were not allowed to carry guns in Poland. They were not allowed to leave the plane with weapons. They decided to stay on board,” he said.
“The accusations against Poland of racism are being circulated. It is nonsense.”
But the South African Head of Presidential Protection Unit Maj-Gen Whally Rhoode accused Poland of risking the life of Ramaphosa.
“There has been no compromise whatsoever to the president’s safety as a result to the impasse that involved the charter flight with the Presidential Protection Services team and the media,” Magwenya added later, contradicting his country’s head of presidential escort team.
The highly trained members of Ramaphosa’s protection team remained stuck in the plane in Poland due to aviation regulations and bureaucracy.
And Maj-Gen Rhoode spoke out on the drama, saying the Polish government of “deliberately sabotaging” President Ramaphosa’s peace initiative.
Plane restricted for hours
The plane was detained on Thursday at the Warsaw Chopin Airport where it had landed at 1330hrs local time. Before arriving in Poland, it was also faced with restrictions from Italian authorities who had said it didn’t have permissions. However, after holding in a pattern for some time, the pilot was allowed to continue.
Read: African leaders head for ill-starred peace mission in Ukraine
In Poland, it ran into further problems. But this was hours after the South African leader’s courtesy call to his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda. It had 12 crew. The journalists and security teams were meant to join the leaders on a train ride to Kyiv while others were to fly to Rzeszow in Poland before heading to Russia.
“She [a senior official of the PPS] tried for four hours to get in here, she was strip-searched. It has never happened that we have strip-searched someone with a diplomatic passport, just to get us out of here,” Rhoode told the media aboard the aircraft.
The senior female official was tasked to organise accommodation for the police and members of the media.
“Now they say that we don’t have permits, we have permits. The only difference is that they are saying we cannot bring a copy of a permit; we must bring the original.
“Some of us have original permits and the embassy here in Poland printed permits because they thought it was not necessary to have the originals here,” he told the South African publication.
“Now, all of a sudden, we must have permits and are putting the life of our president in jeopardy because we could have been in Kyiv this afternoon already.
“This is what they are doing, and I want you to see that when we started to open the packages, they wanted to rush to confiscate our firearms and that is why we had to put it back.”
Rhoode was referring to the 12 containers carrying weaponry South Africa brought along to protect President Ramaphosa and his delegation.
The delegation of leaders was expected to meet with Russian President Vladmir Putin on Saturday. But there were already clear signs the mediation offer won’t do much due to the grandstanding by each side. Ukraine had already declined mediation offers from Beijing, as Kyiv demanded talks only after complete withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory.
Read: Ukraine urges Africa to condemn Russian invasion
The African leaders have refused to take sides nor condemn Russia’s invasion but admit the war has caused the cost of food to rise in Africa, which relied heavily on Ukrainian and Russian wheat.
Source: The East African
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