Imagine yourself, a South African, in Zimbabwe attempting to appear on the Zim TV news programmes to publicly denounce the Zim government for having "committed the largest case of fraud in Africa".

Added to that, labelling the Zimbabwe home affairs minister as a liar who was no friend of SA and that this minister knew of the case of hundreds of thousands of South Africans in Zimbabwe who have been defrauded by the Zim government! 

Imagine that. What would happen to you were you to fulminate like that in Harare? Firstly, you would never reach the Zim TV studios before the very competent Zim intelligence services hauled you to the deportation centres and summarily expelled you.

You would not even do that in Botswana; that government being more competent than SA's. Not so in SA, which crawls with pusillanimous peers in high positions of power.

Adv Simba Chitando, a Zimbabwean citizen based in SA, appeared on SABC News (July 1) and emitted a locomotive-like roar, sending a rumbling tremor through the whole Auckland Park buildings in his denunciations of home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi and the "fraudulent" SAG.

Chitando threw a potpouri of epithets of "xenophobic", "lying", "thieving" Motsoaledi,  who was a friend of Operation Dudula; and that his kleptocratic government was no better either.

Chitando warned white South Africans not to be complacent for this evil government would target them next. He was certain that white liberals and the xenophilliac NGOs would rally the troops to man the ramparts against the xenophobic barbarians at the gates.

Painfully for me, my one-time organisation, the Helen Suzman Foudation, jumped into the fray and mounted a legal Chitandoic blast at the government for its "shameful" and "illegal" ill-treatment of ZEP holders. A number of civic organisations descended on Motsoaledi for having insulted the HSF as if Motsoaledi was not a legitimate and legal protector of the sovereignty of SA.

Carpetbaggers should never succeed to delegitimise one of our few highly esteemed patriotic leaders. Motsoaledi's priority is the safeguarding of the integrity and sovereignty of the state and its citizens. He cannot have a higher priority than this regardless of the malodorous smears on his person.

Prof Themba Sono, by email