The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the New National Party (NNP) both called for the suspension of the South African ambassador to Indonesia, Norman Mashabane, yesterday.

The organisations also said Mashabane should not attend an international symposium on gender sustainable development in Indonesia in September.

"Given the fact that he has been found guilty on 22 counts of sexual harassment, all which are currently on appeal, it is entirely unacceptable for him to accept engagements of this kind until (and if) his name is cleared", said the DA's Sandra Botha in a press statement.

The organisers who had invited Mashabane to speak at the conference had not known of the sexual harassment charges, and believed that as the South African ambassador he would be well qualified to talk on gender equality, the Sunday Independent newspaper reported this week.

"The fact that he is still in office, making it possible for him to continue embarrassing South Africa in this manner, and has not been suspended pending the outcome of his appeal, is the result of the Department of Foreign Affair's reluctance to handle this issue", said Botha.

NNP spokesperson Andre Gaum appealed to Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to make a decision on Mashabane's case.

"Minister Dlamini-Zuma's delay in finalising Mashabane's appeals against his dismissal is causing all kinds of potential embarrassment for South Africa", he said.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa yesterday declined to comment.

The beleaguered ambassador was in 2001 found guilty of 21 workplace sexual harassment charges, including stroking the buttocks of an employee, molesting a staff member in the lift, and "making sexually suggestive gestures with his tongue" to an embassy employee.

He also allegedly showed pictures of a couple having sex to two of his staff and told them "they had to learn" and he would teach them.

He appealed the judgement, and was allowed to continue in his post pending the outcome.

However, in June 2003 another charge was laid against him, and he was again found guilty.

The department allowed him to appeal yet again, and there has been no further comment on the matter from the department.

Mashabane's CV on the South African embassy's website in Indonesia proclaims him a "gallant revolutionary cadre" of the African National Congress, and says he was responsible for setting up the "non-racial, and non-sexist" democratic general election in the then Northern Transvaal in South Africa. – Sapa.