SA’s decision in context
SA’s abstention last week from the UN General Assembly vote on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine might have come as a disappointment to some — but it wasn’t a surprise.
It was, after all, generally in line with the way that SA’s votes on rights issues at the UN have gone since the country rejoined the multilateral institution in 1994, says Suzanne Graham, author of Democratic SA’s Foreign Policy: Voting Behaviour in the UN.
In this time SA has voted most consistently on issues such as UN reform and the advancement of Africa’s interests. On rights issues, the country is “the least consistent”, says Graham.
While SA has voted consistently in favour of “thematic human rights resolutions” — protecting civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in general — and for the right to development and the promotion of democracy, there’s been a less clear line on country-specific votes where other interests have been at play.
On Myanmar, for example, SA took “a kind of ping-pong position”, Graham says. During its first term as a nonpermanent Security Council member, SA voted with Russia and China against a 2007 resolution relating to Myanmar. The resolution would have called on that country’s government “to cease military attacks against civilians in ethnic minority regions and begin a substantive political dialogue that would lead to a genuine democratic transition”.
This was despite the statement by then deputy president Thabo Mbeki in 1994 that SA could be “counted on to adhere to the pursuit of important goals of international peace and security and [would be] committed to being a good citizen of the world”.
In Graham’s view, the Myanmar vote may have been an attempt by SA to show it “wanted to be taken seriously, and [was] very keen not to appear to be rubber-stamping other members’ [decisions]”.
Previous attempts by democratic SA to call out Nigeria’s human rights violations had, after all, been met with resistance, even ridicule, in Africa, as SA was perceived to be an extension of the West — and that stung.
SA also failed to use its public UN vote to take a position against human rights abuses in other cases — relating to Cuba, China, Belarus, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe, among them — indicating a strategic move away from prioritising human rights to paying attention to competing interests, including massaging old friendships.
This sparked public criticism and some confusion, partly because SA’s stance wasn’t properly communicated, Graham says.
However, SA appeared to reverse its position on Myanmar in a General Assembly vote in 2018 and 2019, which suggested a return to a human rightsbased foreign policy as the country celebrated Nelson Mandela’s centenary.
Also, with Cyril Ramaphosa taking over as SA president in 2018, the country would have “wanted to show a reconnect with morality and [a] move away from the corruption scandals, and [for] the world [to] see us in a different way”, Graham says.
Importantly, there have also been some significant human rights wins for SA at the UN — for example, when it rallied the Security Council in 2019 to adopt resolution 2493 on women, peace and security unanimously at a time when many delegations were challenging recommendations on human rights for women.