By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says Russian President Vladimir Putin is welcome if he decides to visit South Africa and will not be arrested.
South Africa will host the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China at the 15th BRICS Summit from 22 to 24 August in Durban.
The International Criminal Court has recently issued an arrest warrant against Putin for the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
But Russia is not a member of ICC and it is not yet clear how the warrant will be enforced.
Malema has described the ICC as hypocrites.
He briefed the media on Thursday following the party’s national shutdown on Monday.
“Putin is welcome here, and no one is going to arrest him.
“If needs be, we will go and fetch him from the airport to his meeting, he will address finish all his meetings and we will take him back to the airport.
“We are not going to be told by these hypocrites of the International Criminal Court who know the real violators of human rights and the murders of this world.
“President Vladimir Putin is welcomed, we know our friends, the people who liberated us, and the people who supported us.
“We know the people who supported us, In Cuito Cuanavale the weapons that were used and led to the liberation of South Africa were coming from Russia,” Malema added.
Malema also said he believes the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was a waste of taxpayers’ money.
The SANDF, alongside the South African Police Service (Saps), was on standby as members of the EFF and other political parties took to the streets on Monday, demanding that President Cyril Ramaphosa resigned from office.
The army’s month-long deployment will end on 17 April.
Malema said the deployment of law enforcement agencies proved that the party’s protest was an “overwhelming success”.
It was not business as usual,” he said.The object was always to get the message across and we did that successfully without destruction of property and without harming anyone.
He questioned the rationality in deploying the army for 30 days.
The African Transformation Movement (ATM) has since asked the president to deploy the 3 474 soldiers to high crime areas across the country such as Krugersdorp.
“Seeing that the deployment of the SANDF lapses on 17 April, and that the state incurred an expenditure figure of R166 562 058 on this deployment, it would be a fruitless and wasteful expenditure if the members of the SANDF are not deployed to areas such as Hillbrow and Sunnyside, where human trafficking, drug trafficking, hijacking of buildings, production of counterfeit products, and many other crimes take place,” ATM president Vuyo Zungula said in a letter to Ramaphosa.