After the announcement, the Helen Suzman Foundation's Nicole Fritz tweeted: 'Hope whoever briefed the President gives him a fulsome apology. Diplomatic crises resulting from failure to read the text properly!!'

After causing an uproar by announcing that South Africa was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a statement late on Tuesday that his earlier announcement was wrong and that South Africa would remain in the court.

At an earlier joint press conference with visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinistö on Tuesday, Ramaphosa said the government had decided, "It's prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC largely because of the manner in which the ICC has been dealing with these types of problems."

This referred to what he called unfair treatment of countries by the ICC -- a view which he said had also been taken by Amnesty International.

"And our view is that we would like this matter of unfair treatment to be properly discussed. But in the meantime, the governing party has decided once again that we should pull out. So, that will be a matter that will be taken forward."

Ramaphosa's reference to the "governing party" having decided to withdraw from the ICC gave the impression that the ANC had made the decision at its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at the weekend. But the NEC had in fact reiterated its...