Chairperson, hon Minister, Deputy Minister, hon members, and our new director-general, Ambassador Jerry Matjila - welcome to the club, sir - the UDM supports Budget Vote No 5.
When the stage of euphoria that existed during our country's first democratic elections in 1994 dissipated, a section of African leaders and scholars became extremely sceptical of South Africa's close relationship with the West. They feared that although we had attained political liberty, the former colonial masters would be pulling strings behind the scenes.
There is a lot that South Africa has done to dispel the myth of a South Africa that has an anti-African agenda, such as our high expenditure on peacekeeping missions, regional economic development initiatives, and so on. However, we ought to spend more time in thorough introspection about where we might be failing the peoples of the continent.
Even after the efforts of former President Mbeki's epic African Renaissance project, South Africa still struggled to win the faith and confidence of certain African leaders regarding South Africa's commitment to the African agenda. There has been much criticism and debate on the continent on how South Africa seems - unwisely, at times - to endorse dubious UN Security Council's resolutions. The situation was made worse when former President Mbeki was seen by many to have succumbed to pressure from the West, which demanded that Charles Taylor be sent to the International Criminal Court to face allegations of war crimes.
Recently South Africa went against the African Union, AU, position on the Libyan conflict and endorsed the dubious UN Security Council Resolution No 1973, which imposed a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians. To our country's embarrassment, it later turned out that the West had duped the South African government into politics of hypocrisy and regime change. The UDM holds no brief for the Gaddafi regime. However, Resolution No 1973 gave the West licence to kill. Indeed, no one in this House can dispute that this resolution gave the West permission to support the rebel forces by giving them aerial cover in the fight against the Gaddafi regime.
Once more we are witnessing foreign policy similarities between how former President Mbeki conducted the Charles Taylor exit from power strategy and President Zuma's widely reported trip to Libya to get Gaddafi to relinquish power. Needless to say, this is a complete departure from the original brief of the AU. [Time expired.]