PRESS RELEASE: Ramaphosa Preaches Self-Determination Abroad, Denies It at Home

PRESS RELEASE: Ramaphosa Preaches Self-Determination Abroad, Denies It at Home

President Ramaphosa told the United Nations this week that international law must be respected, and that the right to self-determination for Palestine requires recognition.

Yet here at home, his government does the exact opposite. South Africa’s Constitution recognises the right to self-determination and the authority of international law. Since 1994, South Africa has ratified multiple treaties affirming this principle, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Despite this, the ANC has systematically denied the people of the Western Cape any meaningful path towards self-determination. It has opposed the Western Cape Peoples Bill, disrupted debate on the Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill, rejected provincial requests for devolved powers in areas like policing, and even issued legal threats against advocates of Cape Independence.

RP leader Phil Craig says: “Ramaphosa has chosen to champion the right self-determination at the UN, but at home, his government actively opposes it. The ANC cannot pick and choose where rights apply depending on political convenience.”

The Referendum Party emphasises that all peoples - whether in Palestinian or Israeli, Afrikaner or Zulu, or the people of the Western Cape - have an unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. In the words of the African Charter, this entitles them to pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen. This is clearly not the case in the Western Cape.