BRICS Summit: Modi, not Welcomed by his South African Counterpart

By Sajjad Shaukat

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) bloc met for its annual leader’s summit in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 22–24, 2023. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also visited South Africa to attend the 15th BRICS Summit.

A South African news website, Daily Maverick revealed that it faced cyber-attack—they were hacked on August 23, this year after publishing a report on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s arrival in Johannesburg for the BRICS Summit.

The report of the Daily Maverick elaborated: “how Modi was reportedly unhappy not to be welcomed by his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa…Modi landed at the Waterkloof Air Force Base, he refused to leave the plane because a cabinet minister, rather than President Cyril Ramphosa, had come to welcome him…A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is described as a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, network or website by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic…Several hours ago, the site suddenly went down. We picked it up very quickly and started identifying a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. We investigated and found it was coming from a whole host of Indian servers”.

It further pointed out: “Daily Maverick’s security coordinator Daily Maverick said that though the attack was ongoing, the publication had managed to put a firewall in place and put the website back up…It was obvious that the purpose of this attack is to deny the people of India access to this story as no attempt was made to hide the source of the attack…Daily Maverick’s editor-in-chief Branko Brkic clarified, this left us with no option but to block the entire domain of India to protect the integrity of the site. The website is currently not accessible from India”.

However, according to the Daily Maverick, a cabinet minister was initially sent to receive Modi at the Waterkloof Air Base and the Indian prime minister refused to alight from his plane.

Quoting the Daily Maverick, renowned website The Wire confirmed and explained: “By contrast, President Cyril Ramaphosa had personally been on the tarmac to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping when he arrived on Monday [August 21] night, ultimately, deputy president Paul Mashatile left an event held for Xi and proceeded to receive Modi from Waterkloof”.

It is mentionable that as Indian PM Narendra Modi was scheduled to visit South Africa to attend the BRICS Summit 2023, the Muslim Lawyer Association and the South Africa Kashmiri Action Group have jointly lodged a fresh complaint to the National Prosecuting Authority and South African Police Service “to arrest, investigate and possibly prosecute Modi for the war crimes his forces are committing in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)”.

They demanded “the United Nations Secretary General to take notice of human rights violations in Kashmir and refer the case to the International Court of Justice [ICC]. Modi’s brutal actions in the Occupied Kashmir where the Indian Army under command is, continuously, killing hundreds of citizens including children and women, these extra-judicial killings have become a routine of Indian Army”.

It is noteworthy that the Kashmiri females are being sexually abused by the Indian security forces. The un-armed innocent Kashmiris are simply demanding their legitimate right—implementation of the resolution of United Nations Security Council, passed on April 21st, 1948, which is being continuously ignored—instead of giving them their right of self-determination, they are giving them bullets to silence their voices.

It is notable that nexus of Indian extremist outfit RSS with ISIS is emerging. RSS and ISIS are operating to eliminate the Kashmiri Muslims from Occupied Kashmir to act upon the larger plan of New Delhi. The persistent killing and other brutalities by successive Indian governments were ongoing—but became more brutal under Modi’s direct orders, while Kashmiris remains firm to demand just their right of self-determination as per the UN resolution.

Common man of this whole region holds Premier Modi responsible for these violations of human rights in the Indian Occupied Kashmir.

New Delhi is violating the global treaties by not allowing the human rights bodies to access Kashmir. The fanatic groups such as RSS, ruling party BJP and other biased anti-Muslim organisations had claimed to declare India a “Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation) by 2019. RSS continues following anti-Muslim policies, which were demonstrated by killing thousands of Muslims in Ahmedabad, Gujrat, and in other parts of India, the demolishing of Babri Masjid—now the same is being replicated in Kashmir.

Modi and his government officials as well as Army chief Bipin Rawat should be tried under war crimes like Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile, Slobodan Milosevic, President of Republic of Yugoslavia, and Milan Martic and Milan Babic, Presidents of Republic of Serbian Krajina.

Nevertheless, Indian PM Narendra Modi is committing cruelties by killing of innocent Muslim Kashmiris including women and children, like the previous Indian governments, whereas Kashmiris are simply demanding for their legitimate right of self-determination, under the UNSC’s resolution.

So, ICC should take action against PM Modi and Indian Army chief Bipin Rawat for mass murdering, genocide, mass blinding, raping and other heinous crimes against humanity in Indian Occupied Kashmir and also appoint a high-powered commission to investigate unending and unprecedented human rights violations.

Nonetheless, it was due to gross human rights violations in the IIOJK that Modi did not deserve red carpet at BRICS, and was not welcomed by his counterpart.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

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