Sisulu’s defence of Tanzanian tormentors, instead of journalists and SA’s constitution, is indefensible
Cyril Ramaphosa was at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week extolling the virtues of democracy, liberty, respect for human rights and freedoms and the rule of law. It was an eloquent speech but unfortunately he was preaching to the converted. “SA, Africa and the EU,” he said, “are bound by shared values of democracy and respect for human rights.” Not quite. Pity he didn’t tell that to Lindiwe Sisulu, his minister of international relations & co-operation. Better still he should preach the good news to his fellow African leaders.
Last week Angela Quintal, a South African citizen working for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and her Kenyan colleague Muthoki Mumo, were in Dar es Salaam when unfriendly visitors arrived unexpectedly at their hotel. Initially they were told the group were immigration officials but they turned out to be the feared security personnel who’ve become a law unto themselves since John Magufuli became president.
The two were taken to a secret location where they were interrogated and verbally abused for five hours. Their passports and cellphones were removed from them. Fortunately, Quintal had alerted her employers in New York and fellow journalists, who immediately spread the word about their predicament. The two might have been detained for much longer, even indefinitely, but for the international uproar which seemed to catch the Tanzanians by surprise. The journalists were eventually driven back to their hotel at three in the morning.
It was pleasing to hear how our diplomats, especially Thami Mseleku, the high commissioner, moved swiftly to get the pair out of custody. He got their passports back and helped them to the airport and out of the country. And chests swelled a tad when it was reported that Sisulu had given instructions that she be kept informed every step of the way about the fate of the journalists.
At last, one thought, our government was doing right by its people caught up in trouble in a foreign country.
Imagine one’s utter disappointment when Sisulu, at a news conference on Monday, regurgitated the garbage fed to her by the Tanzanian government. The pair, she said, had entered the country under false pretences. They had tourist visas when in fact they were in the country on assignment; they were working. That’s what the Tanzanians told her and she believed the twaddle. But even if they were guilty of such an infraction, is Sisulu saying it was right for them to be treated like dangerous criminals, without due process? Is she comfortable with that? She’s quick to take the word of the tormentor, and not that of the tormented.
The journalists were in the country to investigate the repression of the media, especially the disappearance of a journalist a year ago, now believed to have been killed by people close to the government. Quintal and Mumo were obviously touching a raw nerve.
But as Quintal has said, they had a letter of invitation from the Media Council of Tanzania, a press regulator recognised by the government, and were staying at a hotel not far from the president’s official residence, patronised by the ever-present security personnel — not the behaviour of people up to no good.
Are we making a mountain out of a molehill? I don’t think so. Respect for human rights, the right not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause; the right not to be detained without trial; and the right not to be tortured in any way — all these prescripts are there in our constitution in black and white. They talk to who we are, and in a way remind us of an awful past that should never be allowed to come back to haunt us. Government ministers are in power not for their own gratification, but to jealously protect the rights of their citizens wherever they may be. We should not live by these values only at home, they should guide our foreign policy.
Quintal and Mumo were lucky they were foreign journalists. An ordinary person would probably have still been languishing in some rat-infested cell.
Sisulu may have thought Tanzania deserved a good turn. The country was kind and generous to the ANC during its exile years. Places like Kongwa, Dakawa and Morogoro have attained legendary status in the organisation’s folklore. But such sentiments should not be allowed to guide or influence government policy.
Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s founding father, once famously told Nelson Mandela that with SA free from apartheid, it was its duty to use its muscle — its sophisticated economy, strong civil society, independent judiciary and vigorous media — to take a leadership role on the continent. SA has been too coy to follow his advice.
Under Magufuli, Tanzania has almost become a gangster state, where critics disappear and gays and lesbians live in fear. And SA, instead of upholding its own constitution, makes common cause with a brutal regime. That’s rank cowardice unbecoming of a country that wants to be respected on the world stage.
As Ramaphosa was talking enthusiastically about the bonds of democracy and respect for human rights that tie the two continents, he was probably unaware that the EU had recently recalled its ambassador to Tanzania and that Denmark had decided to withhold aid amid fears of a crackdown on homosexuals.
Instead of preaching about democracy in faraway places where respect for human dignity has become second nature, maybe Ramaphosa could start closer to home, in Kigali, Kinshasa, Khartoum and places where people still live in fear of their own governments. Sweep your own backyard first is always good advice.