Two weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian published the report by justices Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke on Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential elections.

This report was only obtained after after a six-year legal battle with then-president Thabo Mbeki.

M&G also said in an editorial that Mbeki had “connived in the subversion of democracy in a neighbouring state”. Basically claiming that Mbeki wanted to transform democracy in Zimbabwe, and in essence ‘betray’ the country and the Zimbabwean citizens as a democracy. Some pretty heavy stuff…

Mbeki and his closest advisers at that time did not respond, but he has now:

The self-righteous, misguided and insulting opinion of the Mail & Guardian is based on the disturbing failure by the newspaper to convey the truth about the basis of the decisions of the then South African government concerning the 2002 Zimbabwe presidential elections.

We owe and will make no apology to anybody whatsoever both about resisting the publication of the Khampepe report and respecting the determinations made by the SAPOM, the SAOM and the other African observer missions about the 2002 Zimbabwe presidential elections.

Mbeki has hit back at the accusations but this story seems to have only just begun.