Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson George Charamba has said the South African nation is a problem.

Charamba made his comments just as President Cyril Ramaphosa sent to Harare a second group of envoys to mediate the current crisis.

The comments also come in at a time when the courts released the two jailed: politician Jacob Ngarivhume, and journo Hopewell Chinono who have endured more than a month in the Chikurubi maximum prison on charges of plotting to overthrow the government or organising a violent uprising.

Writing on Twitter, Charamba said South Africa was deluded in supposing that it has the capacity to deal with the challenges facing the SADC region. He said: “South Africa is no donor State in SADC.

“If anything, its long apartheid legacy makes its post-1994 subregional role quite problematic for the rest of SADC States who know the continued dominance of Afrikaner capital in SADC does not benefit the ANC or blacks in Soweto or Khayelitsha.

“That is the sordid truth.

“South Africa cannot intervene militarily in any SADC country. That lesson was driven home during the Mandela days when it sought to do so in Lesotho. Since that disastrous escapade, South African diplomacy has been tempered and restrained to function within SADC structures, as should be!

“Just what is the logic and implication of Zimbabweans of insufficient history and national consciousness asking for South African intervention in Zimbabwe outside SADC structures?”