Blind ANC doing SA no favours
The ruling ANC is not that concerned about the niceties of justice.
FILE PICTURE: African National Congress (ANC) supporters. Picture: Michel Bega
We should not be too surprised that Zimbabwe first lady Grace Mugabe was granted diplomatic immunity before scuttling back home yesterday.
The ruling ANC is not that concerned about the niceties of justice.
We refused to arrest Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir when he was in this country – a clear violation of our international commitments.
We allowed Mrs Mugabe to duck and dive for a week over an assault charge and then let her off. Obviously, there was going to be a huge diplomatic row if we had arrested Grace while she was here.
And a row with Mugabe was not something our government wanted, not after two decades of looking the other way and accommodating a head of state who is accused of killing thousands of his countrymen and who also allegedly stole elections to keep himself in power.
So, we did what the African “look the other way” club – the continent’s leadership – has been doing for decades: we shoved justice and democracy aside in the interests of “good relations”.
The rest of the world is not going to take us, or most of the rest of Africa, seriously if we continue to turn a blind eye to illegal behaviour.
