Note to editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the Shadow Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Stevens Mokgalapa MP during the debate of national importance on Omar Al-Bashir.

23 June 2015

Justice must be done for the 300 000 Africans murdered in Sudan

Madam Speaker,

This debate happens at a shameful time in South African history. We are here to get answers as to how we stooped so low and actively chose to take the moral low ground and allow a wanted man to escape accountability for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

Human rights should be the cornerstone of South African foreign policy. Only through a firm commitment to justice and the rule of law, and the promotion of International Law, will we achieve a stable and prosperous African continent.

Section 165(5) of our Constitution clearly stipulates that “An order or decision issued by a court binds all persons to whom and organs of state to which it applies”.

This means the Executive was bound by our Constitution to comply with the order that Mr Al-Bashir should not leave until the court had decided whether South Africa was to arrest him as per the warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). By not complying with this order, the Executive is, quite simply, in contempt of court.

The question now is why did the Government flagrantly ignore our own court and abandon our human rights and rule of law based Constitution and foreign policy?

South Africa is a signatory to the Rome statute and has domesticated this into our own domestic law through ratification and promulgation of an act called “South Africa’s Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court” in 2002.

The Executive have directly violated Parliamentary authority by not adhering to our international obligations. It must then be asked, what is the purpose of this Parliament ratifying treaties when the Executive decides on a whim to defy them?

Mr Al-Bashir should have been arrested because we are morally, legally and constitutionally duty bound to comply with domestic law and international obligations.

The ANC government, led by Jacob Zuma, has committed a crime of assisting a wanted man to run from the law. Let us, for a moment, think about what allowing Mr Al-Bashir to evade the law means to the 300 000 people who were murdered and the two and a half million people who were displaced in Durfur by Mr Al-Bashir.

This saga has dented our moral standing and now tarnished our previous title as champions of human rights.

With increasing haste, the Executive branch of government seems to show no regard for the rule of law or any of the constitutional principles we have jealously guarded for more than 20 years.

How does President Zuma take advice from the likes of Mr. Mugabe and protect Mr Al-Bashir? The answer is that birds of a feather flock together and President Zuma flouts the law of our country with the same impunity as these men seem to.

There are many questions unanswered about this sad chapter and the DA will not rest until the truth is exposed. Ultimately it is the people of South Africa and Sudan who are the losers because the Executive has demonstrated that it has not any regard for the loss of life and displacement of millions of Africans at the hands of one man.

The Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, claims that she will not appear before the Committee to brief it on the Al-Bashir debacle because the matter is sub judice. This simply isn’t true and is just more thinly veiled pretext to avoid accountability. This is what we have come to expect from members of the Executive who choose to spuriously apply rules, as and when it suits them.

South Africa has a lot of work to do if we are to redeem our moral standing and international responsibility. The DA’s values of freedom, fairness and opportunity means that we believe the Government should at all times act honestly, transparently and in the best interest of all South Africans.

The people of South Africa have the power to make our country a shining beacon for Africa and the world again by using their vote to ensure that put people in power that will respect the rule of law.

The Government, under President Zuma, has failed in its duty to uphold the Constitution, has failed the people of South Africa and failed those who were murdered and displaced in Darfur. Shame on you.

Issued by the DA, June 23 2015