“If Botswana falls, then what does Africa have left?”

Dumelang,

In this week’s issue of Sunday Standard there was a stirring letter to the editor from a Zimbabwean national, comparing the slow crackdown on human rights under Mugabe to the current situation in Botswana. “I squirm a little when I see certain things happening in Botswana for I am hit by déjàvu,” he writes. “I have seen it all before.” The painful parallels, such as how Botswana’s DIS and Zimbabwe’s CIO (Central Intelligence Organization) both answer only to an executive rather than the constitution or the opposition to critical press,  are growing more visible. Botswana must not become another Zimbabwe.

But the signs are evident that we have already begun the slide. One of the country’s beleaguered opposition parties, the Botswana National Front, was denied a permit by the police to march against the recent rash of extrajudicial killings. President Khama has allegedly extended private security to his sister and other immediate family members. And one month after John Kalafatis’ murder, the government has refused to apologize for or even acknowledge the illegal nature of the killing.

In a bit of good news, the Monitor reported that President Khama withdrew his lawsuit against the Sunday Standard. The defamation suit, centered around allegations of Khama’s involvement in the May 13 Kalafatis shooting, was the first time in Botswana’s history a president has taken a newspaper to court. The Monitor commended the action as “a step in the right direction for the president and our democratic society,” but decried the accessibility issues (being locked out of the Kalafatis press conference, for example) that led to the conflict, saying the lawsuit “should never have come up in the first place had the advisors…performed their task.”

MISA Botswana also released a statement welcoming the president’s move.

This week MISA/COFEX Botswana will have a booth at NGO week, and our first newsletter should be out by this Friday. Stay informed and always be ready to speak out.

COFEX Botswana