LETTER: ANC would probably welcome oligarchs with open arms

SA, prohibited by law to supply weapons to countries violating human rights under the National Conventional Arms Control Act and the National Conventional Arms Control Committee, has for some years been supplying Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with deadly weapons that have been used in the Yemen war.

Before the Ukrainian conflict, Yemen was regarded by the UN as the greatest humanitarian crisis of the time. More than 100,000 have been killed, including children, and millions displaced, yet SA — complicit in this slaughter — ignores the convention it has signed and sworn to uphold. This is no surprise given the wide and public exposure of gross corruption and state capture by high-ranking ANC ministers.

The ANC, UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and Amnesty International have joined hands in stoking the fires of this human rights tragedy and are complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East — without censure, without conscience, and without consequence. The sale of arms by the ANC to the Saudis is no secret, so why are the UNHRC and Amnesty International not taking SA to task over this obscene trade? No prizes for guessing: they are blinded by the glitter of Saudi and Emirati riches, their focus on a much softer target. 

Last Saturday, 81 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in a single day. Executions are usually carried out in public, by beheading with a sword. Sentences are primarily given on confession, and Human Rights Watch says the majority of people are tortured to obtain confessions. Yet SA maintains warm relations with Saudi Arabia, and there has been not a murmur, not a statement of disgust, and certainly not any condemnation by the moralists who constantly sit in judgment of Israel. 

Also complicit in the execution of their citizens are Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and China, whose execution numbers are highly secretive but estimated to be in the thousands. None of this seems to bother SA’s department of international relations & co-operation. 

Would it surprise anyone if the Russian oligarchs banned and censured around the world were welcomed in SA and given safe haven for their luxury yachts and aircraft? Would it surprise anyone if these oligarchs found a friendly bank or two to hide their ill-gotten riches, given the recent exposure of SA banks being complicit in corruption and state capture?

Allan Wolman, Tel Aviv, Israel

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