Israeli agricultural assistance to Africa
Honest Reporting points out a recent report in Ethiopia's Addis Tribune about Israeli agricultural assistance. Don't place any bets on this having any impact on the African NGOs.
Of South Africa and powerful economies
An enlightening letter from Renato Palmi published in This Day. Renato Palmi is a founding member the Tibetan Society of South Africa.
South Africa has sold its moral soul
Renato PalmiSo much for our 10-year-old rights based,freedom-loving South African democracy. During the recent official visit of China's vice-president Zeng Qinghong he praised the South African government for blocking a recent United Nations debate on China's human rights record. This amounts to South Africa`s condoning the deaths of more than 1,2 million Tibetans during China`s 54-year-long illegal military occupation of Tibet, and the relentless oppression and persecution of Tibet`s sovereign nation.
Ironically, our presidential office and foreign affairs ministry frequently and publicly supports violent liberation movements that subject thousands of innocent men, women and children in other regions to bombings, mutilation, starvation and rape, but will not show any support for the Tibetans` peaceful freedom struggle.
What a short memory our hard-won democracy seems to have. For example, President Thabo Mbeki stated last week that there could be no meaningful discussions relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without the inclusion ofYasser Arafat .
Why is the same level of support and respect not given to the Dalai Lama? Surely it is not pure cynicism on my part to believe that the answer resides in China's economic power, and its insistence that its trading partners fall in with its own version of what it calls a "New World Order"; one that clearly allows no room for human rights.
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