Today 42 people are dead, killed by rampaging xenophobic South Africans most of those affected are Zimbabwean citizens who had fled Mugabe's tyranny to seek refuge in South Africa for them to flee their new homes and are now seeking refuge at South African police stations whose occupants in turn had been bleeding the Zimbabweans dry through their solicitations of bribes which Zimbabweans grudgingly pay in order to avoid deportations. The blood of the 42 that have died horribly at the hands of their vile attackers is on Mbeki's hands who by his stubborn and often idiotic denial of a crisis in Zimbabwe and his shameful, unmitigated and unforgiven support for Mugabe has led to the eruption of xenophobia attacks on Zimbabweans.
If Mbeki had brains he would have acted long ago to revert this tragedy, in turn over 4 million Zimbabweans that left Zimbabwe to overcrowd South Africa's tinder boxes which was a time bomb waiting to explode with or without their presence. Many of the estimated 4 million Zimbabweans in South Africa are undocumented refugees referred by the Media as illegal immigrants as result of the dastardly policies of Thabo Mbeki who for 8 years since the Zimbabwean crisis began has refused to acknowledge there is a problem in Zimbabwe thereby legitimising the Zimbabwean refugees in SA. Its a common fact that many of the Zimbabweans in SA are educated, meaning that they were bringing much-needed skills to SA’s economy, even if some are doing more menial tasks to get by. As a result of their status and irregardless of their education they are forced to compete with poor South Africans many uneducated for the same class of low paid jobs. The country has managed to absorb up to five million economic migrants even as President Mbeki's administration has left 40 per cent of South Africans worse off than they were under apartheid. Crime is endemic, with 50 murders a day in Johannesburg alone. Education, for most, remains rudimentary at best. Mr Mbeki has personally deepened the human and economic toll of the Aids pandemic by refusing to acknowledge its extent or talk frankly about its causes, even though the South African economy has improved 40% of South Africans are unemployed, they live in shanty towns mostly located in the outskirts of the ghettos of Johannesburg the dream of a new South Africa that they were sold by the ANC is just an illusion as they are left to scavenge for a living through crime which is glorified as means to escape the poverty and taste the lifestyle of celebrities they worship. The end of apartheid has benefited those politically connected to the decision makers in the ANC, as the ANC politicians-turned-oligarchs, who have changed political "connectivity" into financial capital through black economic empowerment, are the government's strategy to quickly create black capitalists. Leaving the poor South Africans short changed who then vent their anger at foreigners the proverbial scapegoat for Mbeki and ANC's abject failure at governance
Mbeki's wanted to carve a legacy of his leadership through pan-africanism that he announced to the world through his famous I am An African speech which he gave 12 years ago on the eve of the adoption of the South African new constitution. How hollow his words are today when South Africans are murdering fellow Africans?
I am an African. I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa. The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear. The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share. The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow of despair. This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned. This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution of humanity says that Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes. Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!
He failed to sell his pan-africanism to his countrymen, all the rhetoric about African renaissance is hogwash what is African Renaissance when South Africans are murdering, raping their African brothers and sisters for not being South African? He failed to educate his countrymen about the role that African played in bringing apartheid down.
Most of the leadership of ANC went into exile just before or after the Rivonia trial that imprisoned Mandela amongst them were; Thabo Mbeki who lived in here in UK and also lived in Botswana, Nigeria and Zambia, Joe Slovo also lived here in Britain, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia, Ducie September who was assassinated in Paris lived in Zimbabwe, Zambia before leaving to head the ANC office in France where she was assassinated, Oliver Tambo lived here in Britain and in Zambia, Mduduzi Mbele also lived here in Britain and in Zimbabwe where he taught me History as a lower six at Chaplin High School in Gweru, Tomas Titus Nkobi one time ANC treasurer general was a Zimbabwean by birth who naturalised to a South African when his Zimbabwean father was working in the mines. He was at Adams College of Education in KwaZulu Natal with Joshua Nkomo, the Zimbabwean Vice President and Bernard Chidzero, the Zimbabwean Minister of Finance and Dr. Ntsu Mokhehle, the Prime Minister of Lesotho. All these and many other too numerous to list individually were welcomed by their fellow African brothers during the dark days of apartheid across the whole of Africa. The hospitality came at a cost for Africans, the death of Samora Machel amongst the body littered debris as apartheid government carried military insurgents in the neighbouring countries in search of members of Umkonto we Sizwe. A free South Africa would have been inconceivable had it not been for the solidarity and hospitality shown to South Africans by their African brethren and this is the thanks they get?
