Zimbabwe would prove an acid test for the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad) as well for South Africa’s commitment to enforcing the values enshrined in it, Cape High Court Judge Dennis Davis said in Grahamstown on Thursday.
Speaking at the National Arts Festival Winter School on the topic of a ”human rights-orientated foreign policy”, Judge Davis warned that if Zimbabwe failed, it would have a ”very significant impact on our future prosperity — both material and moral”.
He said a commitment to human rights would prove vital in attempts to reconstruct the continent in general and South Africa in particular.
The impetus towards reconstructing the continent should be on the basis of human rights, proper governance, democratic accountability, cultural and religious tolerance and the rule of law.
He warned that where this did not happen, countries were in danger of ”falling” off the global map.
”We [South Africa] need to lead the rest of the continent if we are to ensure that the way globalisation pans out is to our benefit rather than to our disadvantage.”
He said Africa faced a terrible legacy due to recent and ongoing events in Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
South Africa itself had in the past caused immense damage and destabilisation in Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia.
He said that, ironically, there was now a burden on the new democratic government to take responsibility for the entire subcontinent because of the harm caused by a previous regime.
Foreign policy in general and South African foreign policy in particular was predicated on acknowledging that unless good governance was implemented, Nepad could not be successful.
Davis acknowledged that it was extremely difficult to deal with a dictator who ”obdurately” refused to change his ways.
But he pointed out that the World Health Organisation estimated that one quarter of the Zimbabwean population was HIV-positive and the World Food Programme estimated that six million Zimbabweans faced starvation.
”There is no hope for that country in the long run, unless there is relatively immediate political redress along the lines sketched by Nepad.” – Sapa