Middle East & Africa | Struggling comrades

South Africa’s support for the Palestinian cause has deep roots

But opportunism and politics also play a part

 Yasser Arafat and Nelson Mandel meet at Gaza International airport in Rafah, 19 October 1999
Ties bound in struggleImage: AFP
|JOHANNESBURG

Hypocrisy has, it would seem, no limits when it comes to South Africa’s foreign policy. Exactly a week before the country was due to accuse Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on January 11th, President Cyril Ramaphosa played host to Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, a Sudanese warlord whose Janjaweed militia and its successor are accused of genocide and war crimes in Darfur. Adding to the insult, Mr Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, later visited the genocide museum in Kigali, Rwanda.

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This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Old comrades”

From the January 13th 2024 edition

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