It may not be clear yet the real reasons for the attack on migrant workers in South African cities said to have targeted at migrants mostly from Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Upwards of 50 people were reportedly killed in two weeks of chaos and some 20,000 were displaced.

The attacks started in the poor Johannesburg settlement of Alexandra, one of the so-called townships established to house black, mixed race and Indian people during years of racial segregation in the country.

Within a week, the violence had spread beyond South Africa 's economic capital to the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal in the south-east, and Mpumalanga in the north-east and is now reported in the country’s second largest city, Cape Town , the home province of the Xhosa.

The Press as usual appears to have missed the point, as the architect of the skirmishes might have intended--- by creating diversionary tactics to create an impression of locals standing up against lost job opportunities, businesses and yes----girl-friends.

Historical reality however offers a totally different scenario.

The use of local language to identify ‘unwanted foreigners’a.k.a as Makwerekwere appears to be the catch word in this whole saga and a look at history would point to who the real targets of these attacks by South African youths are----the Shona peoples of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

For most of foreign international Press correspondents, this may not be obvious and would blankly report that Zimbabweans and Mozambicans are targets with the rest of the migrants from other African nations being caught in the line of fire.

The reality however is that while the Shona, the tribe of Zimbabwe ’s President Robert Mugabe and members of other communities from Africa would be obvious targets, the Ndebele of Zimbabwe would not.

For the Ndebele of Zimbabwe (Opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai’s tribe) have so much in common with the South Africa’s Zulu, Xhosa, and Swati tribes that they would not fall for the language test---and this a major factor that is being missed out in Press coverage on these skirmishes.

Historically, the Ndebele are an off-shoot of the Zulu. The two are part of the larger Nguni peoples, classified into three large subgroups, the Northern Nguni, the Southern Nguni, and the Ndebele.

The Zulu and the Swazi are among the Northern Nguni. The Xhosa are the largest Southern Nguni society.

Four of South Africa 's official languages are Nguni languages; isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, and isiNdebele are spoken primarily by the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Swazi, and the Ndebele peoples, respectively. Each of these languages has regional variants and dialects, which are often mutually intelligible.

In South Africa , the term Ndebele, or amaNdebele, currently refers primarily to about 800,000 South Africans whose forebears have inhabited areas of the northern Transvaal (now Northern Province ) for more than a century.

Most South Africa ’s Ndebele trace their ancestry to the area that became Natal Province , later KwaZulu-Natal .

In the early 19th Century, at the height of power of Tsaka, king of the Zulu, many of his subjugated chiefs took flight in an attempt to form their own dominions.

The result was a period of terror throughout central southern Africa known as Difaqane (other accounts term it Mfecane) or "Time of Calamity", and a scattering of various tribes from the highveld.

The Zimbabwe Ndebele tribe (formerly Matabele), was a result of a break away from the Zulu empire and established themselves primarily around the city of Bulawayo , the home town of Morgan Tsvangirai .

Historians say the Matebele, an offspring of the Zulu, were a warrior nation and like the Zulu, they fought on foot in IMPIs, highly disciplined units, armed with an ASSEGAI - a short spear with a large, iron blade - and a shield (note similarities with the Tsaka’s military ware and strategy). The pictures currently coming from numerous South African Press is reminiscent of the Tsaka Army.

Under apartheid, many Ndebele in South Africa and living in the northern Transvaal were assigned to the predominantly seSotho-speaking homeland of Lebowa, which consisted of several segments of land scattered across the northern Transvaal .

KwaNdebele was declared a "self-governing" territory in 1981. Very few of its 300,000 residents could find jobs in the homeland, however, so most worked in the industrial region of Pretoria and Johannesburg and now dominate the slums of these two cities.

At least 500,000 Ndebele people lived in urban centers throughout South Africa and in homelands other than KwaNdebele through the 1980s.

In addition to the estimated 800,000 Ndebele people in South Africa , nearly 2 million Ndebele live in Zimbabwe , where they constitute about one-sixth of the population. About 700,000 Ndebele live in Botswana .

On the other hand, Robert Mugabe’s Shona is a cluster of peoples who have lived in a region of the southern Africa Plateau that includes most of Zimbabwe and part of Mozambique (note that Mozambicans have also been targeted in these skirmishes).

Most Shona people identify with a particular clan rather than with the Shona group as a whole, most Shona communities contain a mixture of clans.

The original Shona occupants of Zimbabwe are all embodied under the umbrella name “Hungwe”.

The conquerors of the Hungwe fall under the blanket name “Mbire”. It is believed that it was the Mbire who were the founders of the Mutapa Empire as well as the Rozvi Empire which was destroyed by the various Nguni tribes that passed through the land of Zimbabwe during the Mfecane wars, namely the Ndebele tribe, who now occupy southwest Zimbabwe , and the Shangane tribe in the southeast of Zimbabwe .

The latest recorded war between the Ndebele and the Shona was in the 1980s few years after Zimbabwe ’s independence in 1980 and would have turned Zimbabwe into another banana republic but for Joshua Nkomo, the then undisputed leader of the Ndebele who brought his troops under control to work with Robert Mugabe.

But the mismanagement of the Zimbabwe politics and economy that resulted in the influx of Zimbabweans to South Africa could not have strained the fragile economic base of the poor South Africans, read Ngunis (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swatis) the more.

But that the Shona-run government of Robert Mugabe refusal to step down after glaring defeat at the polls, the stage must have been set for the nemesis tribes of the Ndebele and Shona to go at each others throats again.

Assuming that the Ndebeles among the immigrant Zimbabwean population in South Africa have over the years established networks among their larger cousins---the amaNdebele, Nguni, Xhosa and the Zulus of South Africa, then we cannot rule out the recent political happenings in Zimbabwe influencing the skirmishes being witnessed in South African cities today.

It is instrumental to note that Morgan Tsvangirai had been held up in South Africa when the outbreak began and since being denied victory in the general elections held March.

Tsvangirai had twice postponed going back home in Zimbabwe where he is facing off with President Mugabe in an election run-off, choosing rather to prolong his stay in South Africa .

Also important to note is the timing of the outbreak of the skirmishes which began as soon as the allegations of plans to murder Tsvangirai were made---leading to his postponing going home in Zimbabwe to campaign for the run-off against Mugabe.

Any possible link of Morgan and the chaos is a matter of investigations by the concerned but with the foregoing, could Africa be witnessing an old-time rivalry between Africa ’s old enemies waging a war that is being camouflaged in terms of economy?

Anthropologists and historians could Africa service by going behind the scenes and unearthed some of these hidden issues.

The writer is Nairobi-based consultant editor

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