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Mbeki under fire as South Africa violence spreads

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-27 22:00

JOHANNESBURG - South African President Thabo Mbeki came under fire Tuesday for going to Japan as violence against foreigners spread to a new province.

Immigrants displaced by anti-foreigner violence in Johannesburg warm themselves at a refugee camp in Primrose outside Johannesburg, May 27, 2008. [Agencies]

Fifty six people have been killed and tens of thousands left homeless, mainly around the economic capital Johannesburg, in the two weeks of attacks.

Mbeki delivered a rare televised national address on Sunday where he lambasted the "shameful acts" which have sullied the reputation of a country which had styled itself as a "Rainbow Nation" since the end of the whites-only apartheid regime 14 years ago.

But most commentators said that the president's intervention was too little, too late, pointing out that Mbeki has still to visit any of the township areas where the violence broke out.

According to opposition leader Helen Zille, Mbeki had managed to compound the sense of remoteness by flying half-way round the world for a conference entitled "Towards a Vibrant Africa: A Continent of Hope and Opportunity".

"I have said the president should have been home, he should have had a hands on approach and he should have intervened much earlier with what is going on," Zille, Democratic Alliance leader Zille told AFP by phone from Cape Town.

Bantu Holomisa, president of the smaller United Democratic Movement opposition party, contrasted Mbeki's response to the crisis to that of his predecessor, anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

"Mr Mandela would have the following day been to townships and addressed the people and gone to the people and addressed the nation," Holomisa told AFP.

"He has to take the responsibiltiy, he is accountable to the nation. The nation has a right to say we were longing for a voice from the highest office but it didnt come when it needed it. We were longing for decisive action, a hands on leadership style."

In his address on Sunday in which he referred to the "savagery" and "barbarity", Mbeki tried to dispel the mounting criticism.

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