Source: The Herald – Breaking news.
Wallace Ruzvidzo, Herald Reporter
Over the years, foreigners living in South Africa have endured periodic xenophobic attacks targeting mainly other Africans earning a living there.
Addressing students at the University of South Africa in Johannesburg last week, President Mbeki singled out the 2008 xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans, saying there was an intelligence document with names, dates and venues where the Zimbabwean opposition perpetrators met to plan an operation to drive Zimbabweans back home to vote out the then President Robert Mugabe, a plan that failed.
“Historically, the African community here (South Africa) has never been xenophobic about other Africans. So, 2008 all manner of trouble breaks out in Alexandra township in Johannesburg, attacks on these foreigners, particularly Zimbabweans.
“Then it spread elsewhere. Xenophobia, Afrophobia. So, I say when I saw that, as president, I recognised that this is not Alexandra township. Alexandra, for decades, has had Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, and so on. There was never ever this kind of conflict.
“Why? There is a mistake we made as government, and that is not to declassify an intelligence document about what happened in Alexandra in 2008. That thing was organised to drive the Zimbabweans out of the country back to Zimbabwe because there were elections in Zimbabwe,” he said.
Mr Mbeki, who served as president of South Africa from 1999 to 2008, said contrary to popular beliefs, the attacks were not xenophobic but politically motivated.
The opposition has over the years been known for championing despondency in the country, but all its efforts have continued to prove futile.
COMMENTS
If what he says is true then I urge him to have the document published. It raises the question of how was possible for Zimbabweans, in opposition to Mugabe’s government, to get South Africans to attack foreigners apparently against their natural inclinations and a history of peaceful acceptance. This does not ring true. It sounds like a Herald quid pro quo for Mbeki’s soft approach to ZANU-PF and it history of violent politics against Zimbabweans.