'Xenophobia mess is not ours alone'

28 April 2015 - 09:05
By RDM News Wire
FILE PHOTO: South African president and president of the ruling African National Congress(ANC) Jacob Zuma addresses supporters in Phillippi, an impoverished suburb of Cape Town. AFP PHOTO
FILE PHOTO: South African president and president of the ruling African National Congress(ANC) Jacob Zuma addresses supporters in Phillippi, an impoverished suburb of Cape Town. AFP PHOTO

“We should ask what caused the foreign nationals to be in South Africa‚”said President Jacob Zuma addressing thousands of people at Freedom Day celebrations.

Zuma’s off-the-cuff comments were made as a diplomatic spat played out between South Africa and Nigeria after the latter recalled its envoy in protest in the wake of the xenophobic attacks.

Zuma seemed to take exception at suggestions that SA alone was to blame for the attacks on its foreign residents‚ and that said African leaders outraged by attacks in here should shoulder some of the blame.