Two repugnant acts disgraced South Africa last week.
The Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco) abstained from condemnation of Russia’s fake referendum. In fact, Pretoria gave legitimacy to that country’s annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory by dispatching the ANC Youth League to monitor that charade as “international observers”.
The second obscene act was the state visit by President Ramaphosa, Naledi Pandor and a delegation of senior ANC ministers to Saudi Arabia, shortly after SA had been elected to the UN Human Rights Council.
A country that has carried out mass executions in recent years, 47 people executed in 2016, 37 executed in 2019 and in March this year 81 executed – all in a single day. Most executions in that kingdom are carried out by beheading.
Amnesty International has detailed that many were sentenced to death after unfair trials on charges of “opposition” to the government and anti-government protests, while “confessions” are made under torture while in custody.
South Africa’s commitment to the standards of the UN Human Rights Convention is meaningless to the ANC, given their close, warm relations with the likes of Russia, Iran, Cuba and other gross human rights violators, making a mockery of what Mandela once said – that human rights would be the guiding light of South Africa’s foreign policy.
* Allan Wolman, Tel Aviv Israel
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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