Guest Blog: Mbeki Not Listening

Ivor Davis is a retired journalist hailing from Zimbabwe. His letters can now be regularly found in our media. He is a staunch Zionist and has battled the local press in a bid to obtain fair media coverage of the Middle East almost since he arrived in South Africa. As a Zimbabwean he feels very strongly about the current crisis - both at home and in South Africa. The following is a piece he recently sent to us on what he thinks has led to the xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

As the xenophobic anti-foreigner hunting season gathered pace in Alexandra and elsewhere, it was inevitable that comparisons with the Jewish experience, as victims over the centuries, would emerge.

A weekly newspaper from Britain, the Zimbabwean – required reading for we Zimbabweans in what we call The Diaspora – quoted a victim in Alex: “We are being hunted like the Jews under Hitler” and the headline read: “We are like Jews during the Nazi era.”

I’m sure Jewish readers caught the word “pogrom” several times in news reports and letters to editors about the atrocities on our doorsteps.

Mbeki and the government were not listening – or didn’t wish to listen – as several warnings were given over the past few years that Mugabe’s Nazi style of leadership with his Gestapo and Hitler Youth, which he calls the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and Green Bombers, would ultimately be bad news for South Africa.

The massacre of 20,000 Ndebele people by Mugabe’s 5th Brigade (trained by the North Koreans) in 1982 and the destruction of thousands of poor homes of city dwellers in 2005 – not to mention the killings and beatings of countless opposition supporters and protestors – should have provided the necessary wake-up calls. Homes and small businesses were destroyed in Harare and Bulawayo to punish MDC voters in opposition strongholds.

As commentators are saying, the chickens are coming home to roost with Mugabe giving the whole region a bad name. It’s feared that our tourism, investment potential and, God forbid, the 2010 World Cup, may all be affected. No diplomacy might have been an improvement on Mbeki’s frequent visits to Harare, the handholding and hugging with Mugabe, and what appears to have been the tyrant getting the wink and the nod to carry on regardless.

A tough and resolute approach by Mbeki to stop Mugabe in his tracks, instead of seeming to support him, might have prevented those three million Zimbos descending on South Africa and the consequences. Perhaps they would have stayed at home.

Regarding the attacks on the township immigrants, The Times made the point in an editorial: “Our intelligence is weak. Our decision making is slow and coordination between the services appears to be poor. The head of the National Intelligence Agency, Billy Masethla, was fired for pointing out these shortcomings.”

I’m reminded of my battle last year with Minister for Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, when I suggested in the media that he should spend more time and effort on problems nearer home, like Darfur and Zimbabwe, rather than Palestine and other far-away places. Obviously Kasrils wasn’t listening to either Billy or myself.