Diplomatic storm brews as Zambia bars Maimane

The government is to call in the Zambian High Commissioner to demand an explanation for why his government prevented DA leader Mmusi Maimane from entering Zambia yesterday. ‘We intend calling in the Zambian High Commissioner to come and explain this whole thing to us,’ Clayson Monyela, spokesperson for the Department of International Relations, said last night, according to a Daily Maverick report. He confirmed that this would be a démarche, the strong form of diplomatic protest which the DA had demanded. Monyela also said that an official from the SA High Commission in Lusaka had been at the airport to receive Maimane but had been unable to help him. Maimane said on his return last night that the whole incident was ‘madness’ and that he had been subjected to ‘apartheid-era’ treatment at Lusaka’s Kenneth Kaunda airport. He had arrived on a flight to observe the controversial treason trial of opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema which is due to start today.

Full Daily Maverick report