Bill Browder, architect of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign to sanction perpetrators of atrocities and corruption around the world, is really disappointed that South Africa is “siding with a murderous dictator”, Russian President Vladimir Putin, instead of with the free and fair world – the free and fair world which sided with South Africa to help defeat apartheid. 

Browder, then a major investment fund manager, was hounded out of Russia in 2005 when he exposed massive corruption among oligarchs close to Putin. He launched the Magnitsky Act in the US after his Russian lawyer, Sergey Magnitsky, was tortured and murdered in a Russian police cell on 16 November 2009. This was after Magnitsky had exposed a massive scam in which Browder’s financial documents were stolen and used in a complex fraud to steal$230-million in taxes which he had paid to the Russian government.

Browder told Daily Maverick’s The Gathering in Cape Town on Thursday that the US Magnitsky Act of 2012 froze the assets and banned the visas of the Russians involved in Magnitsky’s murder and the fraud he exposed.

Since then another 34 countries passed their own Magnitsky Acts which sanction not only Russians but also those responsible for human rights abuse and corruption across the world in places like China, Venezuela and Iran. Browder noted that the US Magnitsky Act was used to sanction the Gupta brothers for their corruption and State Capture in South Africa. 

Browder addressed the gathering by video rather than in person because he said Putin hated him so much because of his Magnitsky laws that he had put him on several Interpol and extradition lists. 

“There are certain countries that I can travel to. South Africa is one country I can’t travel to because I’m pretty sure that If I did… the South African government would arrest me and send me back to Russia where President Putin would then torture and kill me like he did my dead lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.”

He said it would be great if South Africa also passed a Magnitsky Act, “as long as South Africa was using it properly. I kind of have my doubts right now based on the fact that South Africa is so sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.”

Browder noted that all the rule-of-law countries in the world had condemned Putin in the harshest possible ways, sanctioned him, and supplied weapons to Ukraine.

“And then there’s South Africa which we all supported when the South African people were standing up to apartheid. We all went on demonstrations at universities, boycotting products, getting sanctions imposed so that South Africa could live a free and fair life. 

“And now South Africa is free and fair… instead of siding with the free and fair of the world, South Africa is siding with a murderous dictator and that really does disappoint me.”

Browder hoped one day to return to South Africa “when it won’t be dangerous to come there when another South African government, a new South African government, condemns Putin and does the right thing and joins the civilised world fighting against these atrocities”.  

Pretoria has drawn wide criticism for its “non-aligned” stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Though it initially called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, it has never condemned Russia or Putin for the aggression and it has abstained from all of the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly which did condemn them. 

‘What else can be expected from terrorists?’

Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa, Liubov Abravitova, in her address immediately after Browder’s, noted that today – 24 November – marks exactly nine months after Russia invaded her country. 

But she said Ukraine’s war for freedom from Russia had really been going on for more than 400 years, since the 16th century, “when the Russian Empire made Ukraine its colony”. During that freedom struggle Russia committed many repressive acts against Ukrainians, in which about 10 million had died. 

“Ukrainians were forbidden to speak their native language many times, and poets and writers were shot for writing in Ukrainian. But Ukrainians have not lost either their national identity, their culture, or their desire for freedom.

“After all, Moscow knows very well that the only way to take away a Ukrainian’s freedom is by taking her life. That is why the Kremlin’s rhetoric so often sounds like ideas about the complete destruction of Ukrainians, and genocide.

“On the other hand, what else can be expected from terrorists? Terrorists who are capable of shooting energy facilities for months do not hide that this blackmail is intended to force, induce Ukraine to make concessions and change its foreign policy. 

“Terrorists are ready to take the entire African continent hostage to food
security, to starve the most vulnerable inhabitants of African countries.”

But Abravitova said she was certain that the Russians who had murdered and raped Ukrainians or forcibly deported its children to Russia would one day be punished. 

Since 24 February, she said, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies had registered damage to or destruction of 62,008 civilian infrastructure facilities, including 43,574 residential buildings and houses, roads and bridges, 1,970 educational and 398 medical institutions, 396 cultural and 87 religious buildings, and 5,322 water and electricity networks.

“Yesterday, another massive missile attack left most of the country in darkness. But even in the dark we see the real face of Russia: greedy, defeated. Yes, we are today without electricity, without water, without heat, but also without Russia,” Abravitova said to loud applause.

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She noted that Ukraine, as one of the three founding countries of the USSR, had been involved in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. 
South Africa was once the centre of the struggle for truth and freedom, which was exactly what Ukrainians were now fighting for.

“And it is this right that Russia wants to take away from us by shelling peaceful cities, depriving us of heat and light and water. Demanding to make decisions based on her imperial interests, against our will,
our choice and our decision.”

The ambassador called on South Africans to stand together “to protect people and humanity”, to seek the truth and “resist the lies and propaganda spread by Russia along with fear and terrorism”. 

Abravitova urged South Africans to support Ukraine’s struggle for freedom, justice and truth in any way they could afford.

“You can search for true information. You can donate to support Ukraine. You can demand that Russia stop killing Ukrainians.

“Each of you has ways you can support the peace and justice that South Africa was fighting for and that Ukraine is fighting for. I appeal to you – do not stay away! Do not be indifferent, because indifference and lies
Are killing with the same force as Russian missiles.”

Abravitova noted that the end of the year was approaching, the time to make wishes.

“Let me wish for all of us that justice prevails, the truth defeats lies. And me, all I want for Christmas… is peace and… more anti-missile systems for Ukraine. Be as brave as you can, as you were. Be brave like Ukraine is forced to be,” she concluded, to a standing ovation. DM