Africa correspondent Jeremy Vine reports on a huge theft of military equipment from a South African army base, which may have been politically motivated:

The weapons store was in an area the army had described as constantly under guard but that did not stop the thieves taking the equipment and driving off with it in an armoured personnel carrier.

No-one has yet been caught, and the Forty-four Parachute Brigade storeroom in Blomfontein is missing almost a hundred and twenty assault weapons, including automatic rifles and machine guns as well as radios, binoculars and compasses.

Most worrying of all, the thieves used the blowtorch they had employed to cut into the storage area to leave slogans behind them, saying "Viva Mandela" and "Kill the Boers" - a reference to South Africa's white community.

One early theory is that those slogans were in fact left by whites who wanted to throw police off the trail and sew division among black factions in politics here.

But speculation has also focused on the possibility of trouble during next year's election, which South Africans are determined should run to plan. The Army called the theft very unfortunate.
 

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