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Much of Mandela’s tenure as President of South Africa is portrayed as a period offluidity with respect to public policy, especially foreign policy, during which greateremphasis was placed on national reconciliation. Mandela’s 1993 article in the journalForeign Affairs is routinely cited as the starting point of the story of post-apartheidforeign relations. 383 There are very few discussions that consider how the choice ofa human rights-based foreign policy became a plausible – or even an expected - onefor the African National Congress (ANC), given its close relations with states suchas Cuba and Libya, during its three decade-long liberation struggle; and its lukewarmrelationship with the United States and United Kingdom, owing to theiraccommodation of South Africa’s apartheid regime; not to mention theorganisation’s own patchy history of human rights abuses in exile, and in itsprosecution of the armed struggle. 384 There is the additional factor of competingcultures and ideological traditions within the ANC that rendered policy coherencedifficult at the best of times.For Nelson Mandela, 385 the six pillars of South Africa’s future foreign policy wereto be:• The centrality of human rights to international relations, embracingeconomic, social and ecological rights, in addition to political rights;• The value of democracy promotion• The centrality of justice and international law in the relations betweennations• Internationally-agreed, non-violent conflict resolution mechanisms• The centrality of Africa to South Africa’s foreign policy concerns• The dependence of economic development on international cooperationin an ‘interdependent’ world.This ambitious list sought to balance state rights with human rights, and economicrights with political rights. It served to notify the international community that the383 Mandela, “South Africa’s Future Foreign Policy”.384 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Section 5: Findings andRecommendations, Chapter 3: Holding the ANC accountable, pp641-669. An importantnew contribution to this analysis is made in Matthew Graham, “Coming in from the cold:The Transitional Executive Council and South Africa’s reintegration into the internationalcommunity”, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 49, No.3 (July 2011).385 Mandela, “South Africa’s Future Foreign Policy”, 87. Emphases added.164