SOWETAN | Warsaw farce dents SA’s image

When presidential protection unit head Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode addressed the media on the stairs of an SAA aircraft at Warsaw’s Chopin airport on Friday evening, his utterances would have landed reasonably well with many South Africans, who rightly believe the posture of the Poland government is hostile towards Africans.

After all, just over a year ago, African students fleeing Ukraine at the beginning of the war were discriminated against on the Polish border. 

On Friday, Rhoode told the world that Polish authorities were racist and trying to sabotage a peace mission by African presidents to mediate in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

As Rhoode spoke, about 12 hours of furious negotiations were had at the airport tarmac as Polish security forces were refusing to allow passengers of the SAA aircraft – about 120 security personnel of President Cyril Ramaphosa and a contingent of journalists – into the country.

Rhoode claimed the Polish were inconsistent in their expectations of the documentation needed for South African arms to be allowed in. 

But his version began to show cracks after it emerged that his team did not have all the required permits to bring their high-calibre weapons into Poland.

A statement from that government further said there were individuals on the aircraft “whose presence the Polish side were not notified of beforehand”.

Yesterday, News24 reported that Rhoode’s team were warned by the South African Air Force before take off that they did not have the correct documentation, but their concerns were allegedly rebuffed.

If true, this means the presidential protection team was not only incompetent to ensure that all was in order before leaving, they were arrogant in their belief that only they knew how to handle the logistics involved. 

This saga has embarrassed SA on the international front.

Together with our government’s questionable non-alliance stance on the Russian war, it reinforces the perception around the world that SA is increasingly becoming a country with little regard for international law.

Here at home, it ought to raise many questions about the competence of the South African security team in preparation for the trip.

Our government must be transparent about who must ultimately take accountability for the shambolic exercise, which came at a huge cost to our public purse and further dented our image on the global stage.