Zimbabwean student heckles S.A High Commissioner at Oxford University
By Lance Guma
03 November 2006

Lindiwe Mabuza, the South African High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, was on Wednesday heckled by a Zimbabwean student during her visit to Oxford University. Mabuza was delivering an address on the state of post apartheid South Africa at Oxford’s Exeter College in the Rectors’ room. Only a few weeks ago South Africa’s foreign affairs minister Dr Nkosazana Dhlamini Zuma also had her speech in London interrupted by a radical group known as Free-Zim Youth UK. On this particular occasion however one unidentified student managed to take over the question and answer session. According to Zimbabwean journalist Blessing-Miles Tendi who was present at the meeting, ‘Mabuza’s address was tranquil and the audience affable. This masked the drama that would later unfold during the question and answer session of her address.’

The student is said to have questioned South Africa’s foreign policy in terms of its perceived success in the Ivory Coast, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and yet the Zimbabwean crisis remained unresolved. Tendi told Newsreel that, ‘Before Mabuza could respond, the Zimbabwean student declared, ‘I have a present I would like to give you on behalf of all Zimbabweans.’ He reached inside his satchel and produced a placard, which he displayed to Mabuza and the Oxford audience. “Shame on South Africa” was emblazoned on the placard in bold capitals.’

The student is said to have proceeded to the front of the Rector’s room and placed the placard next to the South African High Commissioner saying it was a “present from all Zimbabweans.” He is said to have wished her a merry Christmas, Newsreel was told. Although the student tried to walk out of the venue the commissioner asked him to sit down so she could answer his queries. This was in stark contrast to Zuma’s outbursts in London after she was heckled and declared that Zimbabweans were busy sitting in the diaspora doing nothing. Mabuza decided to respond and said, “There has been loud diplomacy from critics of Zimbabwe other than South Africa and what has loud diplomacy achieved?’

The Zimbabwean student quickly responded by saying, ‘And what has six years of South African quiet diplomacy achieved?’ Mabuza is said to have angrily replied “Zimbabwe is not South Africa’s tenth province, we will not send our army into Zimbabwe and neither will we apply economic sanctions because we believe Zimbabweans should solve their problems by themselves. Only Zimbabweans can solve Zimbabwe’s problems.’

According to Tendi, Exeter College Rector Frances Caincross interjected saying, ‘I think you have hijacked the evening enough.’ This was before the student tried to make a response to Mabuza’s utterances. ‘If the Apartheid South African government could bring Ian Smith and the Rhodesian government to the negotiation table in 1979 then why can’t a liberation government do the same to another liberation government? You talk about international human rights, the universality of human rights, and this is how your country behaves. I am appalled. Merry Christmas”, the Zimbabwean student shouted as he left the gathering voluntarily.

He later told Tendi after the meeting that, ‘Zimbabweans in the Diaspora must shame South African officials whenever they are out and about making hypocritical utterances of an African Renaissance. I am calling on all Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to maintain the precedent that has been set in the last two weeks,’ he added.