Yes, I am on record as saying that South Africans are not xenophobic. We are not, and the acts that took place were, sort of, driven by criminality. Some of them were so criminal that people attacked certain shops and stores. Some of it was with the view of stealing the goods that are sold in those stores and to take them for resale elsewhere in other stores. Now that is sheer criminality and whoever the store owner could've been, whether it could've been a South African or a non-South African ...
So those are acts of sheer criminality and that is precisely what we are totally against.
As it manifested itself, it did so in a way that looked like attacks were being levelled against foreign nationals, but inherently it was not to attack foreign nationals. It mutated into that. However, what it then did was to position us very negatively to the world. The pictures that were shown to the world were that South Africans were attacking non-South Africans. They were attacking foreign nationals. We were at pains to say that we condemn criminality, but as it mutated and manifested itself in the form of targeting foreign nationals, we condemned that too. It was for that reason that I sent envoys out, and when I sent envoys we explained precisely this picture. That is why the police then acted and arrested more than 280 or so people who were involved in acts of criminality. Those people will be charged and brought to book for their acts of criminality that they perpetrated. Thank you.