Where are human rights in Zuma's plan?

Nelson Mandela's clear vision for South Africa has grown cloudy, as Jacob Zuma shifts the focus away from human rights

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president-in-waiting, faces plenty of tough domestic challenges without worrying over-much about international relations.

But how he handles the ongoing crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe will show how much importance he attaches to key issues of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law that resonate at home and abroad. South Africa's recent performance could certainly be improved.

Addressing foreign diplomats in Pretoria last month, Zuma said the African National Congress's main foreign policy aim was to strengthen South Africa's role in peacemaking, reconstruction, development and integration, especially in Southern Africa and the African continent. "We must emphasise what our icon, Nelson Mandela, said in 1992: that the primary task of ANC international policy was to be a friend to every nation in the world," he said. The party had a "clear plan" to fight poverty and other global ills.

But Zuma's lack of emphasis on human rights and good governance contrasted sharply with something else his more famous predecessor said. Writing in 1993, Mandela acknowledged the importance of human rights ideals in the international anti-apartheid movement and pledged "human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs". A free South Africa, he said, would be "at the forefront of global efforts to promote and foster democratic systems of government".

According to Terence Corrigan, "an emergent multipolarity of power in the world will spawn a multipolarity of values". In other words, universal rights remain an aspiration, not a fact. One day South Africa may have to meet a more exacting standard. But that is unlikely to happen while Jacob Zuma is in charge. - guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009.

Source: Mail & Guardian