BBC reporter gets roasted by South Africa ANC Gen Sec after asking on arrest warrant of Putin; asks him on war crimes committed by West including UK
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A video is going viral on the social media Twitter of a top official in South Africa’s ruling party, Fikile Mbalula lambasting UK-based British Broadcasting Corporation’s journalist, Stephen Sackur over war crimes committed by Britain and other Western nations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This came after the South African leader was asked about the arrest warrant of Russian President Putin after the Russia-Ukraine war.
In an exclusive interview with BBC, African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula in an exclusive stated that he would want Putin to visit Africa and that the country would welcome him as part and parcel of BRICS. The remarks by the African leader about Putin were made in relation to the Russian president visiting a BRICS conference in South Africa in August. Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa make up the group.
“If it was according to the ANC, we would want President Putin to be here, even tomorrow, to come to our country. We will welcome him to come here as part and parcel of BRICS,” the leader said.
After this the BBC journalist who tried to provoke him questioned, "You would? You will welcome President Putin here? Right now? A man who is being investigated for war crimes by the International community?"
To this, Mbalula exposed BBC's hypocrisy saying, "Do you think that a head of state can just be arrested anywhere?” He called out the BBC reporter for not questioning Britain and other Western nations war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and why no heads of state were arrested.
[WATCH]: BBC Hard Talk interview with Stephen Sackur.
— African National Congress (@MYANC) May 23, 2023
A head of state cannot just be arrested anywhere. All we want between Ukraine and Russia is peace, that is what is important so that the world can thrive.
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"You are making a lot of noise about putting a state in working for peace between Ukraine and Russia and you yourself have failed to resolve the war. Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair went to Iraq and claimed that they are weapons of mass destruction. Do you see anybody standing against the United Kingdom or Britain? More than millions of people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan and there are no weapons of mass destruction.”
The ANC leader further said that South Africa wants peace and is well aware of what the war between Ukraine and Russia was. "We want peace and only that can help the world survive," he silenced the BBC journalist.
[WATCH]: BBC Hard Talk interview with
— African National Congress (@MYANC) May 23, 2023
Stephen Sackur. We are non-aligned when it comes to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. I met with the USA ambassador, and he has apologized for being overzealous, saying things that he shouldn't have said.#ANCRenewal
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Notably, Mbalula last month referred to the United States as one of the countries ‘messing up the world.’ Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the country’s insistence that it is taking a neutral stance in the conflict has raised the worries of the western world.
South Africa and Russia have a strong bilateral ties given the former Soviet Union’s political and military backing for the ANC when it was a liberation entity striving to overthrow the racist apartheid state that oppressed the country’s Black population.