On Tuesday, President Thabo Mbeki was sworn in for his second and final term as President of South Africa. The inauguration attracted so many African and world leaders and the occasion was as grand as can be expected of a country that continues to enjoy the respect and goodwill of different peoples across the world.

This is because South Africa's liberation from the clutches of racist oppression and humiliation of African peoples has become an inspiration to many people across the world. Many still wonder that just over 10 years ago, the re-elected president, along with the majority black population of South Africa’s could not even vote, let alone be voted for.

So many Western countries and leaders that have been falling over themselves to proclaim their friendship with South Africa, take pictures with the venerable and universally venerated Nelson Mandela, were the same people who kept their racist cousins in power through active collaboration or deliberate inaction or both.

Margaret Thatcher regarded the ANC as a typical terrorist organisation like the IRA in Britain and opposed both sanctions against South Africa and the release of Mandela and other freedom fighters from apartheid jails. Ronald Reagan, like successive American administrations before and after him, opposed the liberation of South Africa and touted constructive engagement with the apartheid regime that was destructive for both South Africa and the whole of Southern Africa. Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and other frontline states paid too heavy a price for their support for liberation. Effectively, the socio-economic progress and development of these countries were postponed until after South Africa's liberation.

It is necessary to recollect these sacrifices and historical facts because in the last 10 years of liberation, there seems to be accelerated forgetfulness or selective amnesia about the collective burden, sacrifice and triumph that South Africa represented for most Africans, especially and the freedom loving peoples of the world in general.

There was tremendous international solidarity for the struggle in the former Soviet Union and Cuba, among left-wing and liberal elements in the West, the churches, allied forces and across a large part of Third World countries in the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, etc. In the Arab and Muslim world, too, there was diplomatic and political support that linked the South African struggle with the quest for freedom by the Palestinian people. Israel, of course, actively supported and collaborated on intelligence and security and defence with apartheid South Africa, despite the fact that many of the Boers were sympathetic to Hitler during the Second World War: racists were united by racism.

While it is the effort, determination, sacrifice and dedication of the people of South Africa and the clear leadership of the main liberation movements, principally the ANC, which finally led to the liberation of South Africa it is equally true that the solidarity movement in and out of Africa helped most significantly.

Both at the official and popular level there is a tendency to greater appreciation of the non-African support while taking the African solidarity either for granted or minimising it. Yet on South Africa, most of our countries, regardless of ideology at home and abroad, were united and stayed the course to the end.

Reading some accounts, it will seem that the anti-apartheid movement alone liberated South Africa. Other accounts validate only the reconciliation phase of the struggle and the change of heart by the racists and willingness of the ANC leadership to negotiate. It is indeed true that victory has many fathers while failure is an orphan!

There are too many negative views about other Africans. It is not just the Whites who look down on Black Africans from the rest of Africa. Many black South Africans have also bought into the racist propaganda that the rest of us have been sleeping and it is South Africa that can wake us up.

The last 10 years have been both challenging and triumphalist for both the people and the Government of South Africa. Many have been willing to show understanding even while expressing some disappointment. But as President Mbeki starts his second and final term, I don't think that many will show generous understanding anymore. They will expect some fast movement both internally and in foreign policy.

For me, I make only one demand of the President: Remove the humiliating demands and requirements on Africans visiting South Africa. It is not enough to say other African countries do the same. President Mbeki can lead on this issue from the front.

Three years ago, Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia liberalised visa regulation for Africans. I have not seen a notable rise in African presence in Addis. Nigeria signed the protocol on freedom of movement within the ECOWAS region at the height of its oil boom economy. Yet all West Africans did not move to Nigeria.

I know South Africa is a beautiful country with a lot of opportunities, but I can assure you that the whole of Africa is not queuing up to enter the rainbow nation. On the other hand, since the end of apartheid, the South African invasion of the rest of Africa through MTN, Vodacom, South African Airways, M-Net, DSTV, Shoprite, a new 'Boer Trek' buying up fertile agricultural land across Africa and other serious business ventures, are unmistakable.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

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