Before I call on Reverend Meshoe ...
IsiNdebele:
... mhlonitjhwa Langa, ukutologwa kwamalimi kukhona. Amalimi wesiNguni akhona; isiZulu sisenomborweni yesihlanu. Emalimini weSesotho kuneSepedi kunomboro yekhomba.
English:
I think you are now okay. Thank you.
House Chairperson and hon members. The ACDP would like to congratulate hon Dr Naledi Pandor on her appointment to head this very important Department of International Relations and Co-operation, DIRCO.
I also want to give credit to my former colleague, Ms Cheryllyn Dudley, who did a sterling job while she served on his committee for many years. In one of her many speeches she said, and I want to quote her:
The ACDP will support all government efforts to promote peace and sustainable development within South Africa, regionally and globally.
This position will not change in the ACDP as we are committed to peace, reconciliation and nation building.
The ACDP is aware that pressure is constantly put on South Africa to take sides in many conflicts. We would like to encourage government to, despite the pressure, remain committed to meaningful and positive engagement with all stakeholders, particularly when dealing with Middle East conflicts. Government should attempt to not only remain impartial at all times, but also aim to convince those in conflicts that peaceful negotiations are the only way to restore peace, reconciliation
and stability in their land, and we hope that they will ultimately bring them prosperity too.
Our peacekeeping forces have to date, managed to remain impartial in the missions they have undertaken on the continent and for that we are grateful. The ACDP would like to see government maintaining the same position of impartiality wherever South Africa is involved in mediation everywhere in the world, including in the Middle East.
Obviously, a number of things have been said about the conflict between Israel and Palestine; that also deserves a comment from the ACDP. South Africa, Chairperson, has the opportunity to negotiate peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine. But attitudes have to change and South Africa must prove itself to be a credible and impartial mediator.
If government is truly committed to peaceful co-existence, then they should be heard condemning Iran, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and all other Israel haters who are calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. Otherwise all the noise that
is being made about world peace is hypocrisy. Nobody or no country in the world should have the right to try to annihilate another nation. That should be totally unacceptable.
The mandate of the Department of International Relations and Co- operation is, among other things, to coordinate and align South Africa's policy abroad and monitor developments in the international arena. It is also to contribute to the creation of an enabling international environment for South Africa to do trade abroad. Furthermore [Time expired.]
Hon House Chairperson, hon Minister of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, Minister Dr Naledi Pandor, all Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon Chairperson of the committee, hon Mahambehlala, hon members, esteemed Guests, ladies and gentlemen and fellow South Africans.
It is indeed a special pleasure and honour for me to address this house on the occasion of DIRCO Budget Vote.
It is befitting that this debate is taking place in the month of July when we pay homage to an illustrious world icon, the founding father of South African democracy, President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela who laid a firm and solid foundation for human rights and active involvement in multilateral processes.
For us as the ANC this month is made even more sacrosanct and firmly rooted in our hearts because it is also the month when we commemorate the inspiring life and death of the 9th President of the ANC, iNkosi Albert Luthuli.
These two great icons of our people have left us all of us with important lessons of how to serve our people, of the need to put the interests of our people before our own personal interests; to be prepared to sacrifice for the greater good and to refuse to sink into the cesspool of greed, of lust for power and the betrayal of the noble ideals and traditions that many heroes and heroines of our protracted struggle, such as Inkosi Bambatha, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, John Langalibalele Dube, Mahatma Gandhi, Charlotte Maxeke and others had bequeathed to him and to us.
Hon Chair, the late former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan asserted in his book titled Interventions: A Life in War and Peace:
What do we stand for as a global community? What are the responsibilities for our common fate in a world that is simultaneously coming together and coming apart-and how do we exercise those responsibilities? How do we strike the balances between growth and development, equality and opportunity, human rights and human security?
The ANC as a government has over time used progressive internationalism including commitment to multilateralism, peaceful resolutions of conflicts, human rights, social justice and the reform of global political and economic order as prism of its role in international affairs. It has been guided by the need to link the national interest to the achievement of a better Africa and a better world as envisaged by the forbearers of our liberation struggle.
These developmental imperatives are in line with the objectives of our chapter 7 of our lodestar visionary document, National Development Plan,