From the time he set foot in Harare’s National Sports Stadium, it was clear South African President Cyril Ramaphosa wasn’t going to get a free pass from the crowds. He was met with disapproving noises, unlike the raucous applause afforded to former president Jacob Zuma, or former Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo, or Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, the first to declare three days of mourning after Mugabe’s death.
By the time Ramaphosa stepped up to the podium to pay homage – like all the speakers before him – to Mugabe’s pan-African leadership, the booing was so loud he couldn’t be heard in the stands. This even as the 60 000-capacity stadium was at most a quarter to a third full. Organised groups of young people dressed in Zanu-PF colours and T-shirts with Mnangagwa’s face on them were making gestures of shooing Ramaphosa away, or the soccer substitution sign, while others blew on vuvuzelas.
They allowed him to say a few sentences but jeered again when Ramaphosa said Mugabe “was a committed pan-Africanist, unwavering in his belief in the destiny and fortunes of Africa. He was an African hero.
Turning to the dignitaries on stage, he said: “Your excellencies, I would like to thank you for the support you have offered us as South Africans during this difficult time. I would like to state it here and now that South Africans are not xenophobic. South Africans are not against nationals from other countries.
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