South African minister: We're not friends of Hamas
Justice Minister says accusations of a close relationship with Hamas are ‘conspiracies’
South Africa has been ‘very clear we are not friends of Hamas’, the country’s Justice Minister told the BBC. Ronald Lamola told the HARDtalk programme that South Africa’s ‘bilateral relations are with the state of Palestine. There’s no confusion about that’.
When asked by Stephen Sackur about Israel’s accusations that by bringing a case of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice, the South African government is ‘cooperating with a terrorist organization’ Mr Lamola responded: ‘They are just using such kinds of words or conspiracies to blackmail us not to take action to protect the fundamental human rights of the children, the women, of Palestine.’
Speaking from Johannesburg, Mr Lamola, who opened South Africa’s charge against Israel in the ICJ, said the government was obliged to bring the case. ‘We have got an international obligation, standing on the Genocide Convention, on the shoulders of our former and founding president Nelson Mandela, who participated in ensuring we are part of the signatories of the Genocide Convention…to ensure that no one in the world or any vulnerable people suffer when we can be able to invoke the contents, and bring to life the Genocide Convention.’
