South African Inquiry Rebuts U.S. Charge on Russian Arms

An investigation by the South African authorities has concluded that weapons weren’t loaded onto a Russian vessel below American sanctions that docked close to Cape Town final yr, contradicting accusations by U.S. officers that South Africa had supplied arms for the battle in Ukraine, President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned on Sunday.

“The panel found no evidence that any cargo of weapons was loaded for export on to the ship, Lady R,” Mr. Ramaphosa mentioned in a televised tackle, after an investigation commissioned by him and led by a retired choose.

Mr. Ramaphosa had mentioned that he wouldn’t launch your entire report to guard labeled info, however {that a} abstract can be made public on Monday.

It stays to be seen whether or not the findings will soothe the connection between South Africa and the United States, which has reached its most tense interval in years largely due to the dispute over what occurred when the Lady R, a industrial cargo ship, docked at a South African naval base below cowl of night time final December.

In May, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Reuben E. Brigety II, made the extremely uncommon transfer of publicly accusing South Africa of loading arms onto the Lady R, saying that he would wager his life on it based mostly on the intelligence he had seen. That triggered a severe backlash in South Africa, with Mr. Brigety being summoned to satisfy with the international minister, Naledi Pandor, and, in keeping with South African officers, apologizing for his public assertion.

Since then, officers in every nation have tried to patch up the injuries, however threats have lingered that the United States may revoke South Africa’s commerce privileges.

During the South African investigation, the panel traveled to a naval base in Simon’s Town, interviewed greater than 50 individuals and reviewed over 100 paperwork, Mr. Ramaphosa mentioned. The officers who made the claims had been additionally invited to submit proof, however they both didn’t seem or mentioned they didn’t have firsthand info, Mr. Ramaphosa mentioned in his tackle.

“None of the persons who made these allegations could provide any evidence to support the claims made against our country,” he mentioned.

The accusations, South Africa’s president mentioned, had broken the nation’s financial system and its standing on the planet, and referred to as into query the nation’s place within the battle between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr. Ramaphosa coupled his announcement with a press release on the success of the latest assembly of rising nations held in Johannesburg, the place leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China, alongside South Africa — a bunch generally known as BRICS — reiterated a impartial stance within the battle, whereas President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia used his platform to rail in opposition to the West.

South African officers have embraced a sentiment — supported by Mr. Putin and China’s high chief, Xi Jinping — of making a brand new world order that doesn’t revolve across the West, an thought

South Africa’s choice to take care of heat ties with Russia, regardless of its invasion of Ukraine, has been a significant sore spot for the United States and different Western allies. The shut alliance dates to the period when the Soviet Union supported the struggle in opposition to South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Since the Ukraine invasion, South African officers have mentioned that they had been sustaining a impartial stance and needed a peaceable decision whereas refusing to select sides in a battle between superpowers.

But the United States and different Western nations have accused South Africa of failing to stay to its neutrality. In February, South Africa held naval drills with Russia and China. In May, it allowed a Russian cargo airplane focused by U.S. sanctions to land at an air power base close to the capital of Pretoria. And final month, Mr. Ramaphosa warmly embraced Mr. Putin at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mr. Ramaphosa has been one among his continent’s most vocal supporters of Mr. Putin.

Beyond the allegations from the U.S. ambassador, a lot of the suspicion across the Lady R got here from the weird circumstances surrounding the ship’s arrival alongside the South African shoreline final yr.

Windward, an organization that makes use of synthetic intelligence to investigate maritime exercise, analyzed the ship’s actions for The New York Times, and located that over the previous decade, the Lady R nearly completely traveled the identical route between Novorossiysk, Russia, and China repeatedly.

But final October, the Lady R set sail on a route it had by no means traveled earlier than that took all of it the way in which round Africa, in keeping with Dror Salzman, an analyst at Windward, which supplies analysis to the United Nations. That new route was uncommon, Mr. Salzman mentioned, as a result of ships sometimes change their routes so drastically solely after they have new homeowners or are crusing below new flags, neither of which was the case with the Russian vessel, which is owned by Transmorflot.

After making a number of stops, together with at ports in Togo and Cameroon, the ship sat early final December simply exterior of South African territorial waters, close to Cape Agulhas on the continent’s southern tip. The transponder exhibiting its location then went darkish, in keeping with Mr. Salzman, and didn’t come again on till 4 days later, close to the identical spot.

During these days whereas the transponder was off, residents in Simon’s Town, roughly 25 miles south of Cape Town and residential to a South African naval base, reported seeing the ship docked there. Retired naval officers residing in Simon’s Town and a residents mentioned that vehicles taking cargo to the ship stopped at a sports activities discipline hidden by timber slightly than the armory, as is generally the case. The retired officers mentioned in addition they discovered it suspicious that the ship was offloaded at night time.

The Lady R left Simon’s Town on Dec. 9. It sailed up the east coast of Africa and, earlier than docking in Mozambique, its transponder once more went off for just a little greater than a day, Mr. Salzman mentioned.

Thandi Modise, South Africa’s protection minister, has mentioned the Lady R was delivering an order of apparatus for South Africa’s protection forces that was positioned in 2018-19 however that would not be delivered due to the pandemic. No weapons had been loaded onto the ship, she mentioned.

John Eligon reported from Johannesburg, and Lynsey Chutel from Simon’s Town, South Africa.