Former president Thabo Mbeki has dropped a bombshell that the deadly 2008 xenophobic attacks in Alexandra, Johannesburg, were part of a planned operation to force Zimbabweans to return to their country and to vote out Robert Mugabe.
Mbeki made the shocking revelations last Wednesday, during a student engagement at the University of South Africa (Unisa), in Pretoria.
He said the driving force behind the operation was a deliberate strategy to force Zimbabweans back to their country to vote against then president Robert Mugabe.
This was during March, in 2008, where the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Mugabe failed to garner a 50% majority, resulting in a run-off election scheduled to take place in June.
Mbeki said Alexandra township has always attracted and had many foreign nationals from different countries across the African continent, without any friction.
“Historically, the African community here (referring to South Africa) has never been xenophobic about other Africans. In 2008 all manner of troubles broke out in Alexandra township in Johannesburg, attacks on these foreigners, particularly Zimbabweans.”
He said the attacks later spread to other areas across the province, with people championing for xenophobia and afrophobic attacks.
Mbeki, who served as the president of South Africa from 1999 to 2008, explained that when he saw the attacks, he realised that it was not the township that he knew.
“Alexandra, for decades, has had Zimbabweans and Mozambicans and so on. There was never this kind of conflict. Why?.”
He said they made a mistake as a government for not declassifying an intelligence document about what happened in that township, on the very same year.
“That thing was organised to drive the Zimbabweans out of the country back to Zimbabwe because there were elections in Zimbabwe. People were out, because they were going against Bob (referring to Robert Mugabe) there.”
Mbeki further disclosed that the intelligence report had names, dates and venues, including additional information where people met and planned the operation of sending the foreign nationals back to their country.
The former president said he regretted not declassifying the intelligence report during his era.
“It was wrong. It was organised, systematic and for political purposes. I am saying the mistake we made, (and) we should have declassified that intelligence report.”
He said South Africa’s economy is in crisis and that it is not caused by foreigners.
“I am a former president of this country and you will never ever convince me that this economy is in crisis because of foreigners. It's not true,” he said as students clapped for his remarks.
Mbeki said among other things that contribute to the economic crisis in the country is the sky rocketing unemployment, which he said needs to be addressed.
“At the same time the country has got a loss about migration of people. Let's enforce laws. You just come here illegally. So the thing about the registration of people undocumented it is correct. But I am saying it is incorrect to think that the economic crisis is caused by people who came from the rest of the world.”
Mbeki’s recent comments about the attacks were an elaboration of what happened in 2008, where he described the violence as “naked criminal activity”, according to the Mail & Guardian report.
”What happened during those days was not inspired by possessed nationalism, or extreme chauvinism, resulting in our communities violently expressing the hitherto unknown sentiments of mass and mindless hatred of foreigners – xenophobia,” he said at the time.
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