Palestinian crisis presents opportunity to reform UN: S African foreign minister Pandor

Johannesburg: The Palestinian crisis has presented an opportunity to reform the UN, to make it more representative and effective at the Security Council level, and to protect the innocent from harm in future conflicts, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor has said.

Speaking as the chief guest at an Eid gathering organised at Brixton here on Thursday, Pandor, the minister of International Relations and Cooperation, criticised the Israeli incursions into Gaza as “arrogant breaches of international law by Israel and the allies of Israel.

She said that a new "low point" has been reached with respect for human rights.

"The war, as well as the genocidal intent of Israel and the failure of the UN to stop the murder of thousands of Palestinians and to show respect for international humanitarian law, indicated to all of us that the world had reached a new low point in respect for justice and human rights," she said.

Pandor said the Palestinian crisis has also presented an opportunity to reform the UN - to make it more representative and effective at the Security Council level.

“(We need to) empower it with practical capacity to protect the innocent from harm in any future conflicts," she said.

"The reason for establishing the UN was to ensure that as the globe, we would settle all conflicts in that body and should any violence ensue against innocent people, we made it the duty of the UN Security Council to ensure that the innocent are protected," she said.

"But we have a fundamental flaw in the Security Council - the permanent five who decide what goes and what doesn’t. That has to be changed," the minister said.

“We also have a flaw in that despite the mandate for peace and security, when the people of Palestine were suffering the onslaught and continue to suffer it, we had no enforcement capability in the UN," she said.

"As we discuss concrete reform, we must insist that there must be not just peace monitoring but peace enforcement capacity in the UN,” Pandor said as she called for the people to make their views known and help influence the outcomes of the reform.

Pandor said she had hope for global reform because of the new fora such as BRICS, which now has six additional members in addition to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

“For the first time, we have a body that consists of over 40 per cent of the world’s population and over 30 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of the world," she said.

"BRICS is a very important forum, and we must encourage it to become stronger to promote progressive ideals and to be representative of the best in humanity,” the minister said.

Pandor asserted that the world is at an inflexion point, where there will either be the "fossilisation" of the current world order and ideology or a decisive and progressive break with the "orthodoxy" and see the emergence of ideals and institutions that are more "humane", "principled" and "values-driven.” She also said that South Africa's activism showed that there are people who believe in the values of justice, freedom and human dignity.

“The leadership of the Muslim community and the broader South African society in supporting the just cause of the people of Palestine has created hope worldwide that there is potential for remaking the world order and reshaping it for the good,” she said.

Pandor urged “caution and vigilance” about the solutions suggested for the Palestinian issue.

“There are some who intend to limit and control the freedom of the people of Palestine to create a pliant Palestine and not a truly free Palestine," she said.

"So, we must watch the developments and intervene where necessary so that they enjoy true freedom like we do in South Africa,” Pandor added.

"Let us be vigilant on what processes are going to unfold as we hope we bring the ceasefire to an end and begin to create a sovereign Palestinian state,” she said.

Pandor described as “a major victory” the action instituted against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

“What we have today is an emerging era that offers countries, governments and the people of the countries of the South a unique chance to set in place a more just, fair and inclusive world order dedicated to human security and development and visibly different from our current global order of dominance and greed,” Pandor said.

The minister said she had shared with her counterparts in a number of countries that their wish to shape a government in Palestine is “a wrong wish”.

“I’ve told them that as South Africans we had a struggle against apartheid and when it came to negotiations, we had our own leaders negotiating on our behalf. We engaged with our leaders on the kind of South Africa we wished to see once we achieved freedom,” Pandor said.

She advised these ministers not to try to determine the nature of who will be in government in Palestine, but to allow the people of Palestine the right to choose their own leaders, as had been the case in South Africa, the foreign minister said.