South African police and army units have held a parade involving helicopters and officers on motorcycles in a show of force in advance of expected demonstrations around the Group of 20 world leaders summit in Johannesburg this weekend.
The military flex on Wednesday came as authorities bolstered security by adding 3,500 police officers and placing the army on standby under the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure – a unified command that coordinates the country’s police, military, and intelligence agencies for high-profile events.
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Deputy national commissioner for policing, Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, told reporters on Tuesday that authorities were expecting protests in Johannesburg and other big South African cities.
“We will allow that right [to protest] to be exercised,” she said. “But within the proper directives and proper confines of the law.”
South African police said they have designated specific areas for protesters to gather near the summit venue, an exhibition centre next to the country’s biggest football stadium.
The two-day summit opens on Saturday and is expected to attract leaders and top diplomats from more than 40 countries as well as global institutions like the United Nations. But the United States is boycotting.
Demonstrations are expected from anticapitalists, climate activists, women’s rights campaigners, anti-migrant groups and others, some of whom are raising South Africa’s own problems with poverty and inequality.
A trade union representing members of South Africa’s Afrikaner white minority has already stoked controversy by putting up billboards around Johannesburg that say: “Welcome to the most RACE-REGULATED country in the world.”
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One of the boards was taken down by city authorities, prompting the Afrikaner trade union, Solidarity, to threaten legal action.
The billboards are in reference to South Africa’s affirmative action laws that advance opportunities for Black people and have become part of a diplomatic fallout between South Africa and the US.
US President Donald Trump will not attend the G20 summit in a boycott over his widely-rejected claims that South Africa’s Black-led government is pursuing racist, anti-white policies and violently persecuting its Afrikaner minority.
Trump’s claims have been widely rejected as baseless, but the US government boycott threatens to undermine the first G20 summit in Africa.
South Africa rejected on Wednesday a US demand that no leaders’ declaration be issued after the G20 summit this weekend, saying Washington had lost its say by boycotting the meeting.
Government officials confirmed reports that the US embassy had sent a diplomatic note over the weekend reiterating that Washington would not participate in the summit.
The Women for Change advocacy group is calling for a national shutdown on Friday, the eve of the summit. It is asking women to boycott work on the day in protest against South Africa’s extremely high rates of violence against women and femicide.
“Because until South Africa stops burying a woman every 2.5 hours, the G20 cannot speak of growth and progress,” Women for Change said.
A South African anti-immigration group will protest against the joblessness and poverty in the country, its leader said, with the country’s 31 percent unemployment rate one of the highest in the world.
A coalition of groups protesting against climate change and wealth inequality has organised an alternative summit in another part of Johannesburg starting on Thursday, saying the G20 gathering is “for the rich”.
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