I look at this business card, it has got his name and address and all that here at his home. On the other side, it has got his name but his telephone number and address are in Paris. So you find him this side of the card or the other side. That is part of the reason we get overrun by these countries....because we have among ourselves forces that are indeed ... hired to collaborate.

Oloka Onyango: My question is about South Africa and its place in the reformulation of Africa. To what extent is the internal reform process in South Africa after Apartheid moving away or confronting a Zimbabwe like situation particularly over the question of land?

Mbeki: It is true that in the last maybe two three years, we have had incidence violence by South Africans against other Africans who come into the country. Essentially it's a struggle, a tension among small traders. People set up little shops in the African areas. Because of the conflict in Somalia, there are a lot of Somalis in South Africa. They will stay in one little room many of them, to keep the cost and standard of their own living down, and under sale pricewise the next door shop of a South African.

A lot of the conflict has arisen out of this, not because the population is generally xenophobic. Indeed because of the mining industry from the 19th century, the process of other Africans migrating to South Africa has been going on for a long time.

By 1995, we had over a million people originally from Malawi living in South Africa. There is no general problem of xenophobia but these problems do arise. The challenge of the eradication of the legacy of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa is difficult. We are talking about a system that has evolved over 350 years.

If people understand that with a challenge of that kind, you need time. Indeed when you refer to the matter of the land question in Zimbabwe, we tried to discourage the Zimbabweans from taking that position. We had become reformist ourselves. I doubt in the South African instance if we could take the same route.