South Africa Has Lost Its Moral High Ground

Desmond Tutu accuses South Africa of losing its moral high ground by failing to stand up to Robert Mugabe. “I want to say first of all that I have been very deeply disappointed, saddened by the position that South Africa has taken at the United Nations Security Council in being an obstacle to the security council dealing with that matter. And I have to say that I am deeply, deeply distressed that we should be found not on the side of the ones who are suffering,” Tutu says in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We should have been the ones who for a very long time occupied the moral high ground. I’m afraid we have betrayed our legacy.”

Tutu is absolutely right. South Africa is the most important country in southern Africa, and without its support, Robert Mugabe wouldn’t have been able to terrorise Zimbabwe for so many years. South Africa’s reluctance to criticise its neighbour is a case of misdirected solidarity.