South Africa Stages Security Show of Force Ahead of G20 Summit Boycotted by US

Helicopters, army convoys, and motorcycle police swept through Johannesburg on Wednesday as South African authorities staged a high-visibility show of force ahead of this weekend’s G20 summit, the first ever held on African soil.

The parade came as part of a major security buildup involving 3,500 extra police officers and the army placed on standby under the country’s National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure — a command network linking police, military, and intelligence units for high-profile events.

Deputy national commissioner for policing, Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, said authorities were bracing for protests across Johannesburg and other major cities.

“We will allow that right [to protest] to be exercised,” she told reporters. “But within the proper directives and proper confines of the law.”

Police have designated protest zones near the main summit venue, a convention centre beside Johannesburg’s largest football stadium, as part of an effort to manage what is shaping up to be a politically charged weekend.

The two-day meeting kicks off Saturday, bringing together leaders and diplomats from more than 40 countries and global bodies like the United Nations. But the United States will be absent. President Donald Trump has ordered a boycott, claiming South Africa’s Black-led government is pursuing “racist, anti-white” policies, an allegation widely condemned as baseless.

The boycott has already cast a shadow over the event. South Africa confirmed this week that Washington demanded no leaders’ declaration be issued after the summit, a request Pretoria promptly rejected.

Meanwhile, tensions inside South Africa are flaring. The white Afrikaner trade union Solidarity drew outrage after erecting billboards reading “Welcome to the most RACE-REGULATED country in the world,” a jab at the country’s affirmative action laws. When the city tore down one of the signs, the group threatened legal action.

Protest movements are multiplying, too. The Women for Change group has called for a national shutdown on Friday to protest South Africa’s staggering rates of gender-based violence. “Until South Africa stops burying a woman every 2.5 hours, the G20 cannot speak of growth and progress,” the group said.

Anti-immigration groups plan rallies over unemployment and poverty, while climate and inequality activists will host a counter-summit on Thursday, branding the G20 gathering “for the rich.”