All of colonial Africa has been using that excuse for thirty years, and probably will continue to use it for another fifty.
James Michener, in one of his many books, posed the idea that Africa may well have to go through a couple of centuries of retribalization followed by nation-building again. I often think of that when reading news from Africa. Steyn has called it new-primitivization or re-primitivization....
There's a lot of Chinese guys going into South Africa and Zimbabwe. The Chinese need the SA resources for their economy.
Unfortunately for black South Africa, a time may come when the Chinese decide they have no need for the Africans...