As a two-year temporary member of the UN Security Council, South Africa has voted against imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe, despite the unthinkable crisis and ruthless dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. While members of the opposition were being killed in Zimbabwe, former South African president Thabo Mbeki held Mugabe's hand on TV and claimed there was no crisis in Zimbabwe whatsoever.

When the UN voted to condemn Myanmar's military junta crackdown on peaceful protesters and human rights violations, South Africa was one of the countries that blocked the resolution. South Africa has also voted against imposing any sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, and to stop monitoring human rights in Uzbekistan and Iran, despite the widespread human rights violations in both countries.

In January 2007, "South Africa was one of 22 countries absent from the UN General Assembly when a resolution was adopted to condemn Holocaust denialism." Also, the country voted against a resolution that condemned the "use of rape as a weapon of war."

ICC

South African diplomats are currently trying everything to suspend or delay the International Criminal Court's case against the Sudanese president Omar al Bashir for the alleged genocide and war crimes in Darfur. Never mind the 200,000 dead and millions displaced in the Darfur conflict since 2003, which many analysts and aid organizations label one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

As James Kirchick rightly pointed out in the Los Angeles Times, how can South Africa and its ruling party, the African National Congress, say that any sanctions against Sudan over the Darfur conflict would be "totally unacceptable" when the same party "demanded complete and utter isolation of the white apartheid government in Pretoria?" Sanctions worked in the case of South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, why not try them in the case of Sudan?

It is difficult to comprehend why the South African government still believes Robert Mugabe's dictatorship can be reformed. As the apartheid government in South Africa could not be reformed but had to be removed from power completely, the same will be true in the case of Zimbabwe. Mugabe's rule simply cannot be reformed; the existing power structures must be completely overturned for the sake of the future of Zimbabwe. If this goal isn't reached, the country's end cannot be far from sight.

Given their past, South Africans should be the first ones to note this, but for a long time the government of South Africa has ignored the oppression and even claimed that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe.

Of course, some will say that South Africa is using the realist approach in international relations as every other country does. The current world order is based on realism, or realpolitik, the oldest and most common theory of international relations. The realist views states as rational and unitary factors focused solely on self-interests, national security, and balance of power. Realism influences states to pursue national interests even if they are contrary to the interests of other people and states. Morals, ethics, and legality are the least important principles for realists.

But still, what happened to the values, ethics, empathy, morals, human decency, and common sense? What happened to Nelson Mandela's promise that "human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs?"