Towards the end of the latest wave of unrest in Burma, where the Myanmar junta fired on peaceful, monk-led protests, killing many, our Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Sue van der Merwe called the Myanmar Ambassador in South Africa into her office. Her statement to the ambassador was not flattering about his government’s actions.

This is the first occasion, in a long while, that a South African government official has spoken against the human rights abuses happening in that country.

In 1994 Nelson Mandela said: “South Africa’s future foreign relations will be based on our belief that human rights should be the core concern of international relations.”

This is the message to which government committed itself, but which, until Van der Merwe’s recent actions, has not been matched by action.

South Africans and the world have long been troubled by the junta’s repression of the Burmese opposition.

However, our government’s first act as a member of the Security Council in 2006 was to vote with China to prevent a resolution condemning the junta’s human rights abuses from being debated, on some spurious technical reason. When an icon of human rights such as Aung San Suu Kyi says: “I have often wondered whether the government of South Africa does everything it can do to support our cause or whether it is even interested in doing everything that it can to support our cause”, then there is a problem with our foreign policy.

However, with the deputy minister’s apparent about-turn, there appears to be a glimmer of hope. It is time our government embraced a deeper commitment to decrying past, present and future violations.

Sheila Camerer, MP
Democratic Alliance
Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs