Pretoria - South Africa’s Navi Pillay earned a reputation for naming and shaming nations when she was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and on Thursday she chided South Africa for its stances on the Ukraine and Syrian crises.
Pillay, who retired from the job last year, said in Johannesburg that the disaster in Libya after military intervention by Nato “has been used by people as a justification not to intervene in Syria”.
“It shouldn’t be like that. Each situation should be judged on its own. What’s important is that people are in danger of their lives; they are crying out for help. That help must be forthcoming.”
She said that South Africa was one of the countries that during the debate on intervention in Syria, had used the argument that: “We intervened in Libya and look what happened. That’s not it, we have to stay in the country and develop institutions.
“We know it in South Africa. What would we do without all our Chapter Nine institutions that are there to look after human rights?”
She also criticised the UN Security Council for its failure to agree to intervene in Syria, saying that in her final briefing to the council before retiring: “I stated that by their failure to agree and act collectively in the face of horrendous violations, they were responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Syria.”
Pillay was speaking at a meeting between one of those Chapter Nine institutions, the SA Human Rights Commission and the UN to discuss South Africa’s compliance with international human rights treaties and other obligations.
She also reprimanded South Africa for its failure to publicly criticise Russia - South Africa’s partner in the Brics Forum - for its annexation of Crimea and evident support for pro-Russian separatists fighting Kiev elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.
“I’m concerned in any regional group where they don’t hold their friends to the same standards as themselves. Something is wrong and our own constitution tells us very clearly what’s wrong and right,” Pillay said.
Brics comprises the emerging nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Pillay described how when she arrived in Geneva to head the UN High Commission for Human Rights, in 2008 she had received lots of admonitions about what she should and should not do.
By the end of her term she had named - and presumably shamed - 54 countries.
“My aim was to be inclusive and focus on all concerns. Some developed countries objected to me shining the lens in their backyards on discrimination against minority groups such as the Roma and migrants and said I should instead be focusing on gross human rights violations in conflicts where thousands of people were being killed.”
International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane re-emphasised this point when she addressed the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.
“Fifteen years ago, as we were ushering in the new millennium, the international community made a solemn commitment to the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals.
“As we now embark on the intergovernmental process of defining a new Post-2015 Development Agenda, we should all be mindful that investment in the unfinished work of the Millennium Development Goals must continue.
“Therefore, it is imperative that the Human Rights Council gives priority to all human rights, ensuring a balance between civil and political, and economic, social and cultural, including the right to development.”
Independent Foreign Service