South Africa’s foreign policy should be directed to furthering democracy rather than cosying up to pariah states, Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Thursday.
He was speaking at a lunch hosted by the Australian-Southern Africa Business Council in Canberra, Australia, where he is on an official visit.
Though he did not say what countries he regarded as pariahs, his remarks come as South Africa finds itself under growing pressure to take a tougher stand on strife-torn Zimbabwe.
He said it was increasingly clear that development and progress could take place only within a framework of democracy.
”I have expressed my concern about many aspects of our foreign policy which I would like to see being more directed in support of the cause of worldwide progress, democracy and development, rather than cosying up to pariah states, failing regimes, dictators and tyrants,” Buthelezi said.
”There are many policies which, from my political perspective, are not in the best interests of South Africa, either in the short- or the long-term.”
However he was confident about South Africa’s future ”because I not only see the glass as being half full, but indeed I think that it is three quarters full”.
”Much of the criticism levelled against South Africa is about focusing on the quarter of the glass which is empty without appreciating the context of where we come from and where we actually are.”
Speaking at another function later in the day in nearby Sydney, to a Sydney-South Africa friendship group, he said that while he could not subscribe to ”some aspects” of the government’s Aids policy, he was confident that ”eventually the light of reason will shine on them”.
”HIV/Aids… is decimating our population and will exact an unprecedented toll of lives in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, unless present policies are changed,” he said. – Sapa