The “poor treatment” of Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera and his delegation as they returned home after a two-day official visit to Pretoria last week was “unfortunate and unavoidable,” South Africa’s Ministry of International Relations said on Wednesday.
The ministry said in a statement that the seven-hour delay in clearing the Malawians to leave South Africa for home was due to “important security, logistical and procedural processes.”
In other words, the local police suspected that Malawi-born evangelists Shepherd and Mary Bushiri, who had just jumped bail, had been sneaked into the presidential aircraft which was about to leave for Malawi.
During the intense search that followed, the Malawi leader and his delegation were left waiting in the dark as to the purpose of the security’s thorough checking of the aircraft and the official delegation.
Acknowledging that South Africa’s “security processes had created concerns” within the Malawian delegation, the ministry claimed that “those concerns have since been addressed.”
The ministry added that diplomatic courtesies were not compromised in the search for the Bushiris and that the two nations still enjoyed “cordial relations at the highest level.”
Malawi’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier this week criticised the South Africans’ conduct for lacking respect for its head of state, saying Pretoria’s response to Lilongwe’s complaints about the diplomatic faux pas “fell short of acknowledging the poor treatment received by Chakwera.”
Whether the latest statement from Pretoria would soothe bruised diplomatic egos between the two countries remains to be seen.
NM/jn/APA