On receipt of the news that South Africa refused to support a declaration by the United Nations General Assembly on Human Rights Day in December 2008 calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality I submitted on Friday 9 January 2009 the following questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs:

1. Whether she can indicate why the South African government failed to support a declaration by the United Nations General Assembly on Human Rights Day, calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details;

2. whether her Office has considered the ramifications of the South African government's failure to support this declaration for the South African government's reputation, both internationally and domestically, in terms of being committed to (a) upholding its Constitution and the values enshrined in it and (b) promoting the freedom of its people as well as the people of other countries; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?

Our failure to translate our domestic Constitution and legislation into international support for human rights is clearly motivated by a desire not to offend some of the most retrogressive and authoritarian countries in the world. This contradiction between what we practise at home and preach abroad is entirely and unhappily consistent with our role call of dismal votes on the United Nations Security Council during our ill-starred tenure there which ended in December 2008.

One of our last acts on the Security Council was to again block (with Russian connivance) a US-UK Security Council attempt to place Zimbabwe on the international agenda. The influential Washington Post (December 21 2008) described our unconscionable support of Robert Mugabe as making the country an accessory "to a grave humanitarian crime".

It is urgently necessary for the South African government to turn the page decisively from a discreditable and disreputable foreign policy approach which places us on the wrong side of the human rights road and has placed a question mark over our democratic commitment and our support for international human rights.

Statement issued by Tony Leon, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on foreign affairs, January 11 2009