South Africa: Standoff At Warsaw Airport After Officials Try to Confiscate Weapons From Ramaphosa's Presidential Protection Unit

analysis

More than 10 hours after arriving in Warsaw, about 120 special forces, high-ranking security personnel as well as journalists were unable to disembark and head to Rzeszów.

South Africa's diplomatic woes continue to grow as Polish officials refuse entry of Presidential Protection Unit weapons into their country. Polish officials instead wanted to confiscate their equipment despite the president's security claiming to have all the required documents.

The head of President Cyril Ramaphosa's Presidential Protection Unit, General Wally Rhoode, has accused Polish officials of being "racist", and blatantly "sabotaging" South Africa by not allowing them to offload their equipment and weapons.

The containers storing weapons and security equipment had to be offloaded for safety reasons.

Speaking to the media late on Thursday at the Warsaw airport, Rhoode explained why the president's security had been left stranded for at least 10 hours in a chartered plane at the Warsaw airport's cargo section. He further went on to explain that they had been organising permits for the past two weeks, adding that this situation was unprecedented.

He mentioned that one of his female colleagues had been strip-searched, which Rhoode believes is unusual when someone has a diplomatic passport.

"They say we do not have permits - we have permits, the only difference is that they say we cannot have copies of permits. The embassy here printed permits because they said...

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.