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Buthelezi lauds Mbeki for apology to Nigeria

Mhlaba Memela

Mhlaba Memela

IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi yesterday praised President Thabo Mbeki for apologising to Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua for the xenophobic attacks.

Writing in the weekly IFP newsletter, he called the apology a "modest beginning".

"The President has said, and I believe him, that the Network Information Service (NIS) had not warned the government of the pending catastrophe, but the ominous signs of an involuntary African diaspora were there for all to see," Buthelezi wrote.

In August, he warned that the flood of refugees, especially from Zimbabwe, was having a harmful effect on South Africa's economic and social stability.

Buthelezi wrote: "The nation is strong, but the state is weak."

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