'Quiet diplomacy' under fire
2004-07-09 21:15
Cape Town - While it was encouraging this week to see the African Union finally addressing the human rights problems in some of its member countries, it was less outspoken about the crisis in Zimbabwe, said acting Democratic Alliance leader Joe Seremane.
Writing in the Democratic Alliance leader's weekly newsletter on Friday, Seremane said the AU was particularly outspoken at its summit about the crisis in Darfur, in western Sudan.
There, more than a million people had become refugees in the wake of attacks by Arab militias on non-Arab residents.
The AU peace and security council - chaired by South Africa's Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - decided to send 300 armed soldiers to protect 60 AU ceasefire observers in Sudan.
The AU stopped just short of calling the events in Darfur a "genocide", but was outspoken about the need for the Sudanese government to stop the militias and live up to its international commitments.
"However, the AU was less outspoken about the crisis in Zimbabwe," said Seremane.
The report of the AU's commission on people's and human rights, which documented human rights violations in Zimbabwe and concluded that "the land question is not in itself the cause of division", was withheld from the assembly of AU heads of state.
According to media reports, Dlamini-Zuma was instrumental in suppressing the report.
"I will be submitting a parliamentary question to the minister, when parliament reconvenes in August, as to why she has chosen to enforce a deadly silence on Zimbabwe, even as she takes a more-aggressive approach towards Sudan.
"Apparently, 'quiet diplomacy' is for some and not for others," he said.
That was not the way it should be. Human rights should be consistent, and indivisible. Every government in the world should be held to the same level of accountability.
'Our government tries to silence others'
It should make no difference whether the victims were black or white. Nor should it make any difference that a government had good "struggle credentials".
"If we must deal with some human rights issue more actively than others, we should certainly focus on those closer to home and which directly affect our interests.
"Yet, time and time again, our government manoeuvres to protect Zimbabwe from censure.
"Not content with maintaining its own silence, our government tries to silence others as well.
"It failed at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Abuja in December, but it succeeded at the AU summit this week in Addis Ababa," Seremane said.
- SAPA