JASPREET KINDRA and MAIL & GUARDIAN REPORTER, Johannesburg | Friday
AMNESTY International has voiced “deep concern” over South Africa’s unclear stance on a European Union resolution on violence by militia members and “war veterans” in Zimbabwe, tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Amnesty’s UN lobbyist Cathy Turner said Amnesty saw South Africa as a “key player” in the commission and among African states, and had not yet committed itself to the resolution.
Amnesty and the rest of the world community expected South Africa to take a stand against human rights violations because of its experience of apartheid, she said.
Rumours were rife in UN corridors that South Africa might sponsor a “no action” motion against the resolution. This device, routinely used by China to block scrutiny of its human rights record, would prevent the commission from considering the EU resolution.
Turner pointed out that the African bloc in the 53-member commission tabled a resolution last year stipulating that only they had the right to table issues of concern to the continent.
Similar sentiments were echoed at the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development talks, which opened in Dakar, Senegal, this week. South African presidential economic adviser Wiseman Nkuhlu, who is at the summit, told the SABC that African countries wanted to be left alone to deal with African issues such as Zimbabwe in their own way.
The SABC also reported that Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade had criticised the “trade union stance” – continental solidarity -adopted by the African states on Zimbabwe.
Agency reports have speculated that President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo did not turn up at the conference as a possible rebuke to Wade for his critical stance.
Turner said the EU had held talks with the African states on the resolution, which asks Zimbabwe to ratify the UN convention against torture and urges the government “to fully cooperate with all relevant mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights, including inviting them to visit the country.”
Requests by several UN human rights special rapporteurs to visit Zimbabwe have been turned down by the government.
Sources said that at South Africa’s insistence the EU incorporated a paragraph recognising “the importance of fair, just and sustainable land reform” in Zimbabwe. The UN representative from Spain, now chairing the EU bloc, closely consulted the South African delegation on the wording.
The resolution urges Zimbabwean authorities to allow civil society “to operate without fear of harassment or intimidation”, as well as seeking government assurances of “full respect for freedom of opinion and expression, including freedom of the press in relation to all types of mass media.”
Reports also indicated that South Africa might be softening its support for an optional protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. After 10 years of drafting, a compromise proposal has been tabled which would allow human rights experts to inspect prisons round the world.
Human rights monitors in Zimbabwe have alleged widespread torture of opposition members by militiamen and war veterans.
South Africa’s permanent representative at the UN in Geneva, SG Nene, originally pledged to co-sponsor a motion to pass the proposal.
But last Wednesday diplomats were baffled when Nene stated that all such new human rights treaties should be adopted by consensus, not by a majority vote. Raising the bar in this way would almost certainly ensure that the proposal dies.
However, Turner said the South Africans “now seemed to be on board”. Nene could not be reached for comment on South Africa’s position this week.
Foreign affairs representative Ronnie Mamoepa confirmed that the African bloc at the UN would abstain when the vote on the European resolution is taken on Friday. South Africa had not decided how it would vote.