LETTER: Pointing the finger at SA’s right abuses

“Human rights abuses anywhere are anathema, but we must not be afraid to sweep in front of our own door before pointing a finger elsewhere,” writes Gunvant Govindjee, and I am indeed indebted to him for highlighting that abuses anywhere are anathema (“Israel and China are comrades in oppression”, June 28). 

Spurred on by his advice I delved a little deeper into some human rights abuses elsewhere around the world, and discovered that most human rights abuses happen to take place in the Arab world, and the African continent including SA, his own country.

SA had in excess of 21,000 murders last year — that’s more than the death toll between Israel and her Arab neighbours these past 50 years, in a constant state of belligerency.

In 2020 more than 42,000 rapes were reported to the police in SA. Gender-based violence is almost out of control, according to your own president, as is xenophobia, and gang violence is almost on a par with the Mexican drug cartels. Would these tragic statistics not constitute human rights abuses?

Again, I thank Govindjee for his council, since on further investigation I discovered that more than 500,000 Syrians were butchered by their president, ably abetted by his Russian and Iranian master. And that upwards of 80,000 civilians, including thousands of children, have been killed in the Yemen civil war, where SA has been supplying arms to inflame the conflict.

Unfortunately, space does not allow me to detail the genocides of Africa, which no doubt Govindjee is well aware of. These tragedies are “in front of his own door”.

Allan Wolman, Tel Aviv

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