Fourteen days after the sanctioned Russian cargo ship Lady R docked at the South African naval port of Simon’s Town for three days, the government has yet to provide an explanation.
The Lady R, which is sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, was originally traveling to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania when, according to local media, it turned off its Automatic Identification System (AIS), a type of surveillance system. tracking provided by GPS. coordinates, identification and other information about the ship to other vessels and coastal authorities automatically.
Citing the South African Maritime Safety Authority, local media reported that the ship did not issue a distress signal, dispelling theories that it was in distress and needed help.
The Lady R was eventually towed by South African National Defense Force (SANDF) boats to Simon’s Town naval port under the cover of darkness between 8pm and 10pm local time, but was spotted by members of the public due to electricity in the surroundings. the area is being closed off as part of the regular “load shedding”.
However, the harbor floodlights were on, according to eyewitness accounts, photographs and local media reports.
It was there that the ship’s cargo was unloaded and carried under armed guard in SANDF trucks, local media reported.
The Lady R anchored in Simon’s Town from Tuesday 6th December to Friday 9th December before heading back the way it came: towards Turkey and apparently the Black Sea as seen on shipping websites.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to CTV News by press time.
Alarm bells sounded for official opposition member and shadow defense minister and military veterans Kobus Marais of the South African Democratic Alliance party, who was informed by various sources (civilian, military and official) of the ship’s arrival.
“Tuesday night I received a message… alerting me to the fact that a commercial ship was being accompanied by [our] warships in False Bay and docking at the Simon’s Town naval base,” Marais told CTV News in an interview on Monday.
“On Tuesday night, the cranes on board were starting to work and they were certainly busy unloading things, there were trucks with containers,” he said. “During the day, the trucks were parked outside the base and guarded by uniformed members.”
Marais said the Lady R was most likely turned away from South Africa’s regular commercial ports because it was under sanctions, raising the question of why it was allowed to dock at a private military yard.
US Embassy Pretoria spokesman David Feldmann said the consulate had warned against anyone supporting Lady R.
“We note that the ship was sanctioned under US law because the ship is part of Russia’s military export-import business and we warned that entities supporting the ship could be in breach of US sanctions,” it said. to the local news agency News24.
The US State Department designated the Russian Defense Ministry shipping company and six others that transport weapons and other military equipment for sanctions in May this year.
The United States has asked countries to deny US-sanctioned Russian ships entry into ports or territorial waters and deny them services such as resupplying and refueling.
However, they are concerned that ships identified as owned by the sanctioned companies continue to transport military items on behalf of the Russian government, according to a State Department spokesperson.
Marais said he had contacted South African Defense Minister Thandi Modise of the ruling African National Congress Party, appointed by recently re-elected President Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as other senior officials who “indicated on Friday that they will issue a statement .”
The Defense Department statement never materialized, and Marais doubts that Modise, and by extension the government, will be transparent anytime soon.
“I wrote an official letter to both the Minister of Defense and the Secretary of Defense requesting the information and giving my point of view that if this is a legal transaction… why the secrecy, why do this in the middle of the night? That clearly supports the narrative that something has been done irregularly and most likely also illegally,” he said, pointing to an incident in 2020 when the Defense Forces illegally imported Cuban medicines using fraudulent documents, prompting a criminal investigation and the medication was dismissed. Returned
Modise did not return CTV News’ request for comment by press time.
“I know that this vessel was not given approval to enter the naval base without very high-level authority,” Marais said. “With the kind of problems that it can cause South Africa on the trade side and on the international relations side… My expectation is that if it wasn’t the Defense Minister, someone else has overstepped their bounds.”
While defense analysts in particular have been watching the development of the situation, with speculation running rampant about the Lady R cargo and the potential ramifications for South Africa, Marais stands firm on what he believes was the delivery.
“Clearly we know that ammunition was offloaded, clearly we know that it was transported and delivered to a specific ammunition depot in South Africa,” Marais said, citing his own intelligence gathering.
His theories have not been confirmed by the government, a frustrating point for defense analyst Helmoed Heitman.
“Why was the AIS turned off, why did it only work on load at night (under illumination when the whole city was dark due to load shedding!!) [sic] and why the government has so far refused to make any kind of statement are all good questions that I have no answer to,” Heitman said in a series of messages to CTV News over the weekend.
And while Marais estimated that six or seven 20-foot boxes were taken off the ship, questions remain as to whether anything was loaded in return.
Local defense companies in the area around Cape Town and Simon’s Town are subsidiaries of larger European corporations, companies that would not risk breaching sanctions imposed on Russia, according to defense analyst and author Dean Wingrin.
“While South Africa designs and manufactures larger and tactical UAVs (drones), it is not a major player…these too are produced in very small numbers. I’m not sure any South African company can supply loitering munitions (so called suicide drones) [sic]. Although we have design capability for smart bombs and missiles,” Wingrin said in messages to CTV News.
All the defense experts and analysts CTV News spoke to pointed out that South Africa’s Special Forces use weapons from so-called “eastern bloc” countries and are known to import weapons and tactical equipment, including Russian and Chinese-made small arms. , but they usually come from Bulgaria or China.
“South Africa, especially in terms of its military-military relations, has always tried to draw a fine line between the West, in general, and China and Russia,” African Defense Review director Darren Olivier said in messages to CTV News. “Hence his organization of exercises with everyone, and his continued use of Western military equipment and doctrine, while exchanging and receiving some instructions from Chinese and Russian forces.
“Since some of the trucks and other assets used were registered to the South African Army, my money would (in the cargo) be something to them. That is also curious, since the Russian Federation is not a traditional supplier of the South African military, nor a traditional recipient of South African munitions,” he continued.
Olivier said it is plausible that the importation of cargo was legally defensible, even if the manner of its unloading was “in other respects questionable.”
“What makes this so suspicious is the covert way in which it was carried out… the cargo movements under cover of darkness and the unjustifiable refusal of any government department to explain the situation,” he said.
As for any cargo loaded onto the Lady R, there is no paper trail so far.
The governing body on armaments and arms exports in South Africa, the NCACC (National Committee for the Control of Conventional Arms), has not approved any arms supplies to either Russia or Ukraine, according to Marais.
“There is a theory that [in return] if it was small components or microchips, South Africa could have been used as a decoy,” he said. “But it would probably be much easier and faster to do it by plane.”
The national secretary of the Union of South African Defense Forces, Pikkie Greeff, told CTV News in an interview on Monday that whether the Lady R’s cargo was ammunition or other tactical components, the trucks that headed north after being loaded they could target a specific ammunition depot used by SANDF. .
“That is the closest depot to the Mozambique border, where at the moment, South Africa has soldiers as part of a contingent… who are deployed in the northern regions of Mozambique to fight radical Islamic insurgents,” Greeff said.
“For some inexplicable reason, they tried to keep this docking (of the Lady R) secret when it was in plain sight…one can’t imagine why they wouldn’t just do it by airborne instead of such a stealthy method,” he continued.
Greeff said that while the SANDF union is apolitical, he believes the ruling ANC party and Minister Modise are “incredibly grateful” for the approaching holiday and the fact that their national conference has just ended to shield themselves from scrutiny.
“In the end, the Ministry of Defense is going to be forced by law to give an answer,” he said.
“In the end, someone will be forced to tell the truth, and the true story, that will put some people, I suspect, in a very uncomfortable decision.”
