SOUTH AFRICA:Former South African cabinet minister Kader Asmal has taken his country to task for failing to campaign against human rights abuses in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
In a hard-hitting article published yesterday in a series of South African newspapers, Prof Asmal - the one-time head of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement - said Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe had manipulated regional and other political initiatives to his advantage.
While he did not overtly criticize Thabo Mbeki over the South African president's policy of "quiet diplomacy" on Zimbabwe, Prof Asmal warned "silence can give rise to complicity".
In a thinly veiled attack on South Africa's foreign policy stance, Prof Asmal wrote: "We are constantly reminded that only Zimbabweans can decide their future. But you can only be conscious actors for change if there is a level playing field, not only for the holding of elections, but also in the run-up. There is no normality in Zimbabwe."
The veteran African National Congress politician, a member of the ruling party's national executive, said he should have spoken out earlier on the issue "as a proud citizen of a free South Africa".
"Why do I speak now? I should have done so in the 1980s, when thousands of people were murdered . . . I did not do so. Neither did I do so during Operation Murambatsvina [ the mass destruction of alleged squatter homes in 2005]," Prof Asmal confessed.
He said if Mr Mbeki's ongoing mediation efforts failed to bring normality to Zimbabwe "the international community, through the UN, must get involved urgently".