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

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.

By Daily Maverick.