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Ramaphosa’s new administration urged to re-engage human rights

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An International Non-Governmental Organisation, that conducts advocacy for the Responsibility to Protect, has urged the new administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa to re-engage with the world on a human rights basis.

Simon Adams, who leads The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect in New York, believes South Africa lost its way after the post-1994 era when the country was regarded as a consistent champion for human rights and conflict resolution in the world – and called for the new leadership to change course.

Adams and his organisation’s focus is to stop mass atrocities and help states build capacity not only to prevent them but to intervene where and when appropriate.

He has also lived and worked in South Africa, no less as a member of the African National Congress (ANC).

“I think there’s a lot of us who would like to see South Africa re-engage with the whole world of human rights and the whole world of conflict resolution. I think SA has a very proud record in the Mandela era of being very involved in a hands-on way in the resolution of conflicts and I think Burundi is a really obvious case in point in which Mandela got personally involved. Well, Burundi is in trouble again, I would love to see SA become a more active player and be a more consistent champion for human rights and conflict resolution in the world.”

The Executive Director of the Global Centre for R2P pointed to the process underway in the country of withdrawal from the International Criminal Court as a case in point.

“Sovereignty entails responsibility as well. Sovereignty is not a license to kill, it’s not a wall which you can construct around your country and say anything we do inside here is our own business. And I am not South African myself but I joined the anti Apartheid movement in the 1980s precisely because we did not see Apartheid as a South African domestic issue, we saw it as an international issue. We saw it as a crime against humanity.

“And so I think the finest traditions upon which the ANC is grounded and in which a democratic South Africa is built, has been precisely in saying that some things are unjust and are wrong.”

I asked him what precisely he was seeking from the new administration of President Ramaphosa and his Cabinet.

“Leadership is all important and I think in many ways who’s at the helm whether they be Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela, Jacob Zuma or Cyril Ramaphosa makes a huge difference to the sort of organisation that the ANC is. And there’s all the talk about collective leadership and so forth, but there is also a sense of leadership on these issues and certainly I think when I go back to the issues that I am very involved in – mass atrocities in the world and the need to stop them from happening, the need for the international community to uphold its responsibility to protect people, these are ideas that Cyril Ramaphosa was literally involved in creating in 2001. He helped coin the phrase “Responsibility to Protect”, he was on the intergovernmental panel that made sure that this was adopted by the UN.

“I think that’s a very important thing, I think that’s a medal which he should wear on his chest and so I’m certainly hoping that he will be much more of a leader both in SA and on the global stage, who’s able to push these kinds of agendas around not just the defence of sovereignty for sovereignty sake, but sovereignty as responsibility and human rights first.”

Adams also welcomed the appointment of Lindiwe Sisulu as the country’s chief diplomat, noting her interesting family pedigree from a political era he hoped would be echoed in the current administration.

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