/ 28 October 2016

Letters to the editor: October 28 to November 3 2016

Apartheid prime minister John Vorster
Apartheid prime minister John Vorster

MPs, vote no on ICC motion

In his speech to the United Nations general assembly on October 3 1994, then-president Nelson Mandela observed that the UN would mark its 50th anniversary in 1995 “with the apartheid system having been vanquished and consigned to the past”. He went on: “That historic change has come about not least because of the great efforts in which the UN engaged to ensure the suppression of the apartheid crime against humanity.”

It was on December 16 1966, then an Afrikaner nationalist public holiday and now the Day of Reconciliation, that the UN general assembly labelled apartheid a crime against humanity. In 1984, the UN Security Council endorsed that position. Today, article  7 of the Rome Statute includes apartheid. Had the ICC existed 50 years ago, John Vorster, PW Botha and their lot could have been brought before it. Would the ANC and African governments have complained? Hell no!

South Africa’s decision to terminate its treaty under the Rome Statute is a betrayal of the millions who suffered under apartheid and a failure to ensure a measure of protection for those who are victims of human rights violations on the continent. It is a tragedy and a travesty. The government’s blindness to one of the roots of the statute is also glaringly evident. The ICC is not perfect but it is one of the few instruments we have for holding tyrants to account.

South Africa now buddies up to some of the worst offenders out of a misguided sense of solidarity with postcolonial regimes that have not served their people well.

All of us should resist the cynical act of this benighted administration to remove one of the few sources of protection afforded to millions of vulnerable people on our continent and elsewhere. African leaders, like those in other regions (such as Europe), are targeted by the ICC because they are deserving of its attention.

Those who are wont to attack the ICC might care to note that seven of the nine cases before the ICC are “self-referrals” – requests from the countries themselves.

We call on all MPs, particularly those in the ANC, to have the courage to raise your voices against the failure of our government to live up to the ideals of our Constitution and the promise of 1994. When the motion to withdraw from the ICC is moved by the minister of justice in Parliament, stand up and vote against it. – Andy Dawes, Robyn Cohen, Lutz van Dijk, Horst Kleinschmidt, Steve Perrett, Oliver Centurier-Harris, Barbara Centurier-Harris, Jonathan Morgan, Don Pinnock, Shelley O’Carroll, Cora de Villiers, Colin Tredoux, Marinella Garuti, Sonja Giese, Terry Bell, Barbara Bell, Perry Tsang, Marche White, Anthony Pillay, Kim Kruyshaar, David Harrison, Pam Picken, Simon Hayes, Di Oliver, Linda Biersteker, Winston Travis, David Martin, Pat Smythe, Svetlana Doneva, Reinet le Roux, Helen Beinart, Linda Richter, Ruth Versfeld, Ann Ralston, Penny Price, Annette Champion, Amanda Barratt, Jane Hendry, Judy Favish, Shaun Conway, Lohan Spies, Carlos Orte, Umesh Bawa, Robert Steiner, Shahnaaz Suffla