Ntsaluba, Media Centre, Union Buildings, Pretoria
29 April 2009
Outcomes of Durban Review Conference
The Durban Review Conference was recently held in Geneva from 20 to 24 April
2009. South Africa is indeed happy with the outcome of the Conference. As you
know, the conference was addressed by the United Nations Secretary General, the
Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay who happens to be South Africa, there
was also a message from the guest of honour of the conference our former
President Nelson Mandela which was read by the President of the Conference, the
Attorney-General of Kenya.
You will also recall that we spoke about the objectives of the conference
being really to review the progress of the implementation of the Durban
Declaration and Programme of Action which was adopted here in 2001. Of course,
in addition, to that, as you would expect, the conference also assessed
contemporary manifestations of discrimination, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerances especially which some of which came
increasingly following 9/11.
You will remember that one of the controversial issues in the build-up was
that of Islamaphobia. Now, in terms of South Africa's position, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs did deliver a statement on behalf of the Africa group. And of
course, some of the areas that were important for us to stress during this
conference is the need to fight terrorism, in parallel to the fight against
racism and not to undermine civil liberties as we deal with the issues around
terrorism because it is quite clear to us that some of these issues that became
very topical and heated like the issues around Islamaphobia are linked to the
general clamour to enhance the struggle against terrorism.
And that it is also important that whatever negative experiences we have, as
we try to attack any new emerging problems like the issue of terrorism that we
are careful not to curtail human rights, especially to the extent that human
rights themselves can assume a character that may be interpreted by others as
being discriminatory and also that as we talk about, again this was an issue
that was at the centre of the debate, one of the concerns of the major Western
powers was that in relation to looking at Islamaphobia, there was concern that
this would curtail freedom of expression especially and a case in point was the
dispute around the issues related to Prophet Mohamed and Denmark.
Basically one of the points we did make was that the importance of learning
from lessons of the past was to not allow the unfettered right of freedom of
expression to be used as a tool to incite hatred and off course, we have argued
consistently that we cannot talk about freedom of expression as if we are blind
to the fact that is was people's expressions that led to the genocide in Rwanda
and it is also this notion of the unfettered freedom of expression that
probably also precipitated the Holocaust. So it was trying to get a balance on
this. I thought I should just highlight some of these key points.
Apart from that, the view of the South African government is that generally
we are happy with the outcome and we are particularly happy with the connection
that was established firmly between the progress that is going to be registered
and the emerging programme with the achievements of Durban. We of course, like
all other countries are a bit concerned that a number of countries did not
attend and we continue to reiterate the view that we do not believe that
difficult issues like these can be resolved if any group decides to boycott
them.
Yes, it is true that sometimes in these situations the discussions are
robust, they can be painful, they can be difficult but it is in the context of
engagement that we can try to reach each other.
Lesotho
Here I wish to underline the statement made by our President in respect of
developments in Lesotho. We are concerned about that, we are happy about the
acknowledgement of the government of Lesotho regarding the co-operation they
continue to receive from the South African Police Service and indeed, we as a
government commit to doing everything in our power to assist Lesotho to
apprehend all those who were involved in that dastardly act.
In the last briefing we had I indicated that there was a meeting that was
due of the World Bank and IMF in Washington. Indeed, that meeting was concluded
on Sunday, 26 April 2009. Indeed our Finance Minister Trevor Manuel attended
that meeting. Indeed, as we indicated Southern African Development Community
(SADC) Finance Ministers did meet on the margins of this meeting to basically
do two things: firstly to see how to implement the Swaziland decisions and in
particular two elements of the Swaziland decision - international mobilisation
through the task team lead by Minister Manuel and secondly, what SADC countries
themselves can do to assist. We are told that the meeting was very
successful.
The Zimbabwean Finance Minister participated in this meeting. Of course, in
addition to these meetings there were side meetings in which our Minister of
Finance participated in e g. our Minister of Finance, together with the
Zimbabwean Minister of Finance and Donald Kaberuka of the African Development
Bank met together with the Finance Ministers of Denmark, United Kingdom,
Norway, and Australia. There were other side meetings that took place, the
focus of which was to try and look at what everybody can do to assist Zimbabwe
and accelerate the process of economic reconstruction.
With regard to SADC, I think we are in a position to indicate that indeed
the negotiations regarding one part of South Africa's engagement with Zimbabwe
seem to be complete and we are just working through the legal processes. That
is a R300 million budget support grant aid to Zimbabwe in the form of budget
support to assist Zimbabwe in some of the critical areas that require
assistance. We are now finalising the discussion which I think will be
finalised in a few days regarding the credit line with Zimbabwe and for now, I
would prefer not to become involved in the speculation around the size of that
credit line.
The second issue that I would like to confirm is that the government of
Botswana has concretely put an amount on the table largely for commercial
transactions, for inter bank transactions and that amount is about US$ 70
million. That is also a credit line so there are a lot of discussions that are
going on. Another important meeting that will take place in due course with
respect to Zimbabwe is an IMF Board meeting scheduled for next week.
The importance of the IMF Board meeting is that it is a meeting that will
also look at whether there is enough support for the proposal to lift the
sanctions on Zimbabwe and that would begin to open up possibilities for many of
the multilateral organisations to begin to engage with Zimbabwe. As you know,
this was something said by Donald Kaberuka when he was in South Africa recently
is that the IMF, the African Development Bank and the World Bank have an
arrangement that when one moves, it becomes easier for others to follow.
So, this is going to be the first important meeting. We have always argued,
as you know, that there are three sets of interventions required in Zimbabwe to
assist with the economic reconstruction - to assist Zimbabwe with respect to
the humanitarian component, to do what we are trying to do with respect to, for
example, credit lines to support the private sector largely in Zimbabwe and
finally, for Zimbabwe to regularise its position with the multilateral
organisations because that will then allow Zimbabwe as an independent sovereign
state to then begin to interact on its own with these multilateral
entities.
In as far as the political process is concerned, as I said last week, we
continue to be encouraged by the stability on the political side. We are aware
of the consultations between the President, the Prime Minister and the Deputy
Presidents and Deputy Prime Minister and we are encouraged by the fact that
whatever the difficulties confront the Zimbabwean leadership there seems to be
a common consensus that they can resolve through dialogue and we are encouraged
by this.
We are also encouraged by the growing sense amongst the leadership of
Zimbabwe across the political spectrum that actually there is no other game in
town. I think everyone needs to get their hands on deck so that the inclusive
government works. And I think these are signals we continue to get.
Madagascar
There are not many new developments with regard to Madagascar. We continue
to be concerned about developments there. There is a high level delegation that
has recently visited Madagascar. There was initially a lower level delegation
that has submitted a report to the SADC Secretariat. As I said, we continue to
be concerned about what is going on there but we are encouraged also about the
lines of communication between the different parties that have been opened up
by the UN's Special Representative to Madagascar.
In as far as the inauguration is concerned suffice to say, preparations are
continuing. Just to say, as of now, we have received confirmation from 41
countries, 21 of which will be represented by their Heads of State; the other
20 will have other senior representatives leading their delegations, the bulk
of whom will be Foreign Ministers and Special Envoys. Confirmations continue to
stream in and we expect that many others will be received early next week.
Candidature of Abdul Minty for DG of IAEA
A note was sent to the media confirming that the South African government
has decided to re-nominate Abdul Minty for the post of Director-General of the
IAEA in the second round of nominations. As off now, as you know, the closing
date for applications was 27 April 2009, there are five names on the table - a
representative from Belgium, Slovenia, Spain and Japan and South Africa have
re-nominated their candidates. So, we will see how this process unfolds as we
continue.
Swine Flu
I am aware that the Health Department has talked to the media this morning
to confirm that we are in close contact with our missions in Canada, the USA,
Mexico with respect to the swine flu outbreak and that guided by the Department
of Health and that the World Health Organisation, we have not thus far effected
any significant changes from those countries so we have not restricted movement
in line with the recommendations of the WHO and the South African Department of
Health. And, just to confirm that our Department of Health is following this
very closely and that all our ports of entry have been reinforced to assist
with any individuals who might land on our shores and want to receive some
assistance and we are aware that our institute of Communicable Diseases in
Johannesburg has also issued guidelines but we will track the situation quite
closely.
Of all the countries that have been affected, the reports we have received
thus far seems to indicate that the country worst affected is Mexico with a
significant number of deaths.
Questions and answers
Question: Director-General, the UN will this week discuss the extension of
the mandate of the UN Mission in Western Sahara, what is the South African
position on this?
Answer: The South African view is that this Mission should continue. That
has been a consistent view of the government. Our view is that everything
should be done, despite the difficulties, not to act in a manner that would
suggest we are giving up on Western Sahara because that will just lead to the
re-opening of hostilities and I think the current ceasefire that exists and I
think the UN peacekeeping force still acts as a sort of inspiration and hope
that the situation can be resolved.
Question: DG, regarding the candidature of Abdul Minty; is there opposition
that prevents him from getting this job?
Answer: I don't think it is with a sense of arrogance that we argued at the
beginning that everyone with whom we met seemed to ndicate he was a stronger
candidate for the job in terms of the credentials and depths of understanding
of the issues required for the job. Of course, you know that when it comes to
representation in multilateral organisations that there are always strategic
considerations of countries. Remember also that as a point of principle, we
began to campaign for Abdul Minty rather late because we waited for the current
DG Dr ElBaradei to indicate that he would be standing for another term. Of
course, by that time, Japan had already approached a number of countries and we
respected that. One of the experiences we had was the number of commitments
some countries had already made. We will still be approaching some countries to
concede that perhaps Abdul is a stronger candidate but of course, they have
made commitments and we ourselves had to respect that. We are now entering a
new round and I think we will see how that plays itself out.
We are going to work on the basis, not just of talking only to those who
supported us in the first round but we will go back to those who did not
support us because some of them indeed may not have supported us because of
prior commitments that they would have made to the other candidate. We are not
sure when the first round of votes will be but we expect it may be in the
middle half of May.
Question: DG, you have mentioned that more confirmations are awaited but can
you confirm whether the following will be attending the Presidential
inauguration, President Obama and the Clintons, the Chinese President, the
Dalai Lama and President Mugabe. Will President Mbeki be attending?
Question: DG, will the President of Sudan be attending the inauguration?
Answer: I would prefer not to get into this at the moment, the problem is if
I tell you that President Obama is not attending then you will make an
assumption that all others that I have not mentioned are coming and you would
understand that countries would have certain sensitivities about the early
announcements of the movements of their heads of state.
So, I would really prefer to not go into this. But maybe, to put you at ease
while not setting precedence, President Obama is not going to attend. The
Minister of Foreign Affairs was in Washington some time ago and during
discussions with Secretary of State Clinton was informed that President Obama
would not be able to attend due to other commitments. We were assured that the
US would be represented by a high level delegation.
President Mbeki would obviously be invited, as are all former Presidents.
This is not the first inauguration we have had and the precedence has been that
all former Presidents are invited to the inauguration. Zimbabwe is not under
any form of sanctions from South Africa, the African Union or SADC so an
invitation would have been extended to the President of Zimbabwe.
With respect to the issue of Sudan, without saying whether President El
Bashir would attend or not, I am sure you are singling him out because you are
aware that there is a real issue around this - that is the issue of the warrant
of arrest of the ICC and South Africa's own position being a signatory to this
convention. We hope that in the interests of the relations between South Africa
and Sudan we will not have an unfortunate event. That is as far as I can
go.
Question: DG, could you please elaborate regarding the situation in Lesotho
- was it an attempted coup or an attempted assassination?
Question: DG, what has been discovered about the South African who was
involved in the Lesotho incident?
Answer: Our understanding thus far is that it was an attempted
assassination. Reports do not suggest it was a coup. We are not in a position
to give further details on those who were arrested except to say is that
additional arrests have been made.
Question: DG, regarding the address of Minister Dlamini Zuma at the Durban
Review Conference, you are suggesting that an excessive freedom of speech can
lead to incitement as in Rwanda and the Holocaust. It was not a question of
incitement in the Holocaust; it was a question of a highly organised
enterprise.
Answer: I think this is in the context of the debates we have been having.
As I said, the context of some of the people who hesitated to participate in
the conference were concerned about what they regard as a sacred issues for
them i.e. the freedom of speech and expression. The point we have been
consistently making is that it is not correct to make a statement that freedom
of expression does not operate within certain parameters.
If you look at what happened in Rwanda, this was incitement of particular
individuals on the basis of what was said about others. Therefore, any
reasonable person would know that as much as people are free to express
themselves, no one has the right to cause hurt to others. I would argue
regarding the holocaust that there were certain things that were said even
amongst the Nazis that led individuals over time to engage in systematic acts
of atrocities incited by those things they may have been saying amongst
themselves. The principle issue we are raising is that we need to enter into
this discussion about boundless, limitless freedom of expression. We need to
interrogate this. We are all conscious that we should not take actions that
will limit civil liberties.
Question: DG, do you consider it safe for the President of Madagascar to
return to his country?
Answer: At the present moment we do not necessarily think it is safe. That
is why we have a SADC high level team that is there. Remember that SADC is
taking the view that we believe that the President should return to the country
at some point but the point of discussing with the current leadership is to
engage them in dialogue so that they see that it is in the interests of
Madagascar to find some other solution to the current challenges. It is
certainly not our view that he should regard himself as a perpetual
refugee.
We also think it would be unwise, provocative and may even incite the deaths
of many innocent people if he were to return to Madagascar tomorrow. If the did
that in the absence of political preparation this would probably cause more
bloodshed and I don't think that would be advisable.
Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
29 April 2009
Source: SAPA
