APA-Pretoria (South Africa) South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to over 100 journalists and media workers who have been killed in Israel’s “genocidal war” against Palestinians of the Gaza Strip in the past three months of lopsided fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas militants.
The president paid the tribute on Wednesday when he delivered his eulogy at a provincial official funeral of celebrated photographer, Peter Magubane, who died on New Year’s Day in Johannesburg at the age of 91.
Magubane was well-known for his images that captured experiences and struggles of black South Africans during apartheid – and these images helped to change the perception of an “equal but separate” regime that portrayed itself as self-righteous.
Ramaphosa said South Africa approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) due to its opposition to the current indiscriminate slaughter of the people of Gaza, including journalists, and the wholesale bombing of their homes, hospitals and other infrastructure.
“As a people who once tasted the bitter fruits of dispossession, discrimination, racism and state-sponsored violence, we are clear that we will stand on the right side of history in this genocidal case” against Israel at the Hague, he said.
He added: “It is our fervent hope that, just as we were able to reconcile and make peace, that the peoples of Israel and Palestine will find a lasting and just peace as well.”
Looking at the world today, journalists were still being arrested, persecuted and even killed for doing their job, Ramaphosa said.
But South Africans could hold their heads up high that they had come very far from the days when Magubane and other journalists “were censured, arrested and persecuted for practicing their craft,” he said.
The country has gone to the ICJ in the Hague on Thursday to present its 84-page document of a genocide case that Pretoria has filed against Israel, accusing it of killing over 20,000 Palestinians in its war against Hamas in the Gaza.
NM/jn/APA