LETTER: SA leaders asleep at the wheel ahead of Mozambique attacks
President, ambassador and intelligence minister should resign
SA's ambassador to Maputo, Siphiwe Nyanda, said on state television that his government “definitely had no idea” the Islamist insurgency attack on the port town of Palma in Mozambique was coming. He just happened to be nearby at the time (yeah, right), and not his embassy 2,000km away. His tone was highly defensive.
When a non-career diplomat puts up his own lack of knowledge as an excuse for inaction one should pay attention. He, President Cyril Ramaphosa and intelligence minister Ayanda Dhlolo gave no advisory warning to South Africans there, let alone an evacuation order. Nor to any other Africans for that matter, who endured days of terror trying to keep their heads while those around them were losing theirs. There were mass executions and torture, disappearances and one of our nationals is confirmed murdered...
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