A People’s Dermache

Ambassador – HE Mahash Saeed Alhameli

United Arab Emirates

27 April 2023

                                                                               A “people’s demarche”

On Freedom Day 2023

This people’s demarche is served on the Government of the UAE for failing to comply with basic international relations protocols.

We the people gathered here do this because the SA Government has not done so on our behalf.

We cannot accept that the Government and the Courts of the UAE:

• Tried the Gupta’s in secret.
• Let them free on dubious grounds.
• Failed to notify the SA Government of this development in advance.
• Only notified the SA authorities almost 6 weeks after the Guptas were let free.
• Failed to deliver this information directly to the SA authorities and made them come to fetch it late in the evening from the UAE Embassy.
• Failed to provide this in a South African language.

The actions of the UAE Government have resulted in people implicated in State Capture in SA being let free. They are now free to roam the world and continue what they started here in other parts of the world.

This is a family that has been sanctioned by the USA and UK Governments. Their bank accounts were closed in SA and need to account for the devastation that they have caused to South Africa.

The actions of the UAE Government have made the task of bringing them to account for their actions more difficult than ever before.

It is however not too late for the UAE Government to show some remorse for its actions.

It can immediately:

• Apologise for its actions.
• Commit to working with the SA Government and international agencies in finding and apprehending the Guptas.
• Close all businesses that are owned and operated by the Guptas in the UAE.
• Freezing Gupta Bank accounts and collaborating with SA enforcement agencies in the provision of information of Gupta accounts and transactions.

The above are the least that expect the UAE to consider if it wants to demonstrate any goodwill to the people of South Africa as they struggle for freedom from corruption, capture and state failure. All of which are in no small part due to the plundering corruption of the Gupta family and their many associates.

Issued by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation

Neeshan Balton

Executive Director