Africa-Press – South-Africa. The South African government should call for a ceasefire in the battle between Ukraine and Russia, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said on Saturday.
The foundation offered to assist with peacemaking efforts.
“We call for a cessation of hostilities and the restoration of peace in the region,” urged the foundation, which is named after the first democratically-elected president of South Africa.
Pravda reported that the Russian Defence Ministry announced a ceasefire on Saturday to open “humanitarian corridors to let residents of Mariupol and Volnovakha leave their homes”.
The publication reported that “conditions” were also created for civilians to leave Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy.
The foundation’s statement noted the complexity of the situation, the “vagaries of international rules of engagement”, and the racism playing out in places.
“We see the unspeakable danger of nuclear plants coming under attack,” said spokesperson Mandlenkosi Dakada.
It referred to a statement by Mandela in 2003, where the Nobel peace prize co-winner spoke angrily about failures of leadership and an absence of credible justification when the US and other Western countries invaded Iraq in defiance of the United Nations.
“Indeed, at what point is a country justified in invading another? At play here are notions of the sovereignty of nation-states and the perceived right of such states to act in their own legitimate interests and their assessment of the benefit or drawbacks of their actions,” the foundation said.
The foundations feels that underlying what is happening in Ukraine is a “profound contestation around the notion of ‘belonging’ in the context of spheres of influence”.
The foundation was concerned by the discrimination against black people trying to flee, who were either being denied seats on buses which were evacuating refugees, or being turned away from the Polish border.
It illustrated, according to the foundation, that “white lives are seen to matter far more than the lives of others”.
“Racism remains as insidious and ubiquitous as it has ever been.”
See the full statement here.
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