... No, party did the right thing
The Mail & Guardian being one of the cores of the ruling-class propaganda machine, it is interesting how it seeks to deceive its readers into supporting the ruling class on the issue of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Sipho Hlongwane’s method (“ANC human rights legacy in tatters”, October 28) is to claim that withdrawal from the ICC betrays the ANC’s legacy of respecting human rights, a claim buttressed by no evidence but an appeal to Nelson Mandela. (Whenever I hear an enemy of the ANC praising Mandela, I release the safety on my Makarov.)
The ANC, historically, supported some human rights, notably political and economic freedoms in South Africa. This was conditional because the ANC depended on states that violated human rights. So Hlongwane’s argument is exaggerated.
The Zuma administration was installed by the ruling class to suppress political and economic freedoms, so it’s disingenuous to complain about this. Besides, the ICC issue has nothing to do with human rights.
Richard Calland’s method (“ICC rebuff is the revenge of a piqued Zuma”, October 28) depends on the hostility aroused by the ruling-class media to President Jacob Zuma and the ANC. Apart from this visceral hatred, Calland’s complaint is that Zuma denies the absolute authority of the judiciary over the legislature and the executive. Zuma’s grounds may be dubious, but the absolute right of a judiciary appointed and controlled by the ruling class to overrule the decisions of elected governments should be questioned.
The issue Calland raises has nothing to do with the ICC matter.
The government withdrew from the ICC because the Rome Statute contradicts the concept of diplomatic immunity. Under the Rome Statute, any representative of any government may be jailed whenever this suits the Nato countries that control the ICC. This renders diplomacy impossible and, because South Africa’s authority in Africa depends on its role as a negotiator and diplomatic broker, it renders our foreign policy meaningless.
The debate is thus whether we should abandon our foreign policy and become a satellite state of Nato, or leave the ICC. The surprising thing is that the Zuma administration has taken this decision. It voted for UN Resolution 1973 authorising Nato armed aggression against Libya, the resolution that destroyed international order (already mortally wounded by the invasions of Serbia, Iraq and Somalia).
It seems the Zuma administration assumed that so long as it kept quiet the ICC would not be used against it and South African diplomacy, which largely serves imperialist interests, would be permitted to survive. In this (as in so much else) the Zuma administration was mistaken: the ICC was used to humiliate the Zuma administration over the Omar al-Bashir case, and to force South African foreign policy to submit to Nato dictates through overweening judicial power.
Doubtless the motives for the decision to leave the ICC are dubious, much like the motives for joining the Brazil, Russia, India and China trade bloc (Brics), but the decision is significant — and is correct.
All hostility to the decision thus far expressed has been intellectually moribund and morally odious — like all plutocratic and imperialist propaganda. — Mathew Blatchford, University of Fort Hare