Ntsaluba backs off on assassination

Ayanda Ntsaluba, director-general in the Department of International Relations, was widely reported to have blamed a foreign government for the shooting of Lt General Kayumba Nyamwasa near his Johannesburg home last month. Now the department has issued a clarification to lower the diplomatic heat.

Statement from the department of international relations:

It is with regret that we note today’s media report by SAPA-AP in various newspapers misquoting Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, the Director-General (DG) of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), on comments he made on the recent shooting of the Rwandan General Kayuma Nyamwasa at a media briefing held last week Thursday, 1 July 2010, at the Department’s OR Tambo Building in Pretoria. The DG, quoting him verbatim, categorically put it “on record that South Africa has not made any determination, for now, about where the suspects to this case come from. So, we do not want to make any assumption so far about where they might have originated from. So we are still, at this stage, where we want to be very cautious that we do not appear to be pointing an accusing finger at any state… We are dealing with a sensitive issue. There is somebody who has been shot in the territory of South Africa. It is somebody who had entered South Africa and had gone through proper legal processes of seeking some form of regularisation of their stay. This is a person who comes from a country that has got good, strong diplomatic relations with South Africa. So everything around it points to us wanting to deal with it with great sensitivity.”

We hope this clearly illustrates the extent to which some elements of the quote above have been lifted and used to convey messages that are contrary to what the Director-General communicated on that day.