The Gun Runners (II)

We had previously noted that one of the key men tasked with stemming the flow of firearms into Botswana, Jan Viljoen, instead used his office as Veldkornet of the Marico District to engage in the lucrative trade for himself.

While a few Boers such as Viljoen, covertly supplied Batswana with munitions, for the most part, the independent western Batswana merafe ended up relying on Griqua and other indigenous suppliers, as well as British traders and adventurers up from the Cape Colony.

Among the latter, David “Taute” Hume and his Kolobeng agent Evans, Cumming, Wilson, Alfred Dolman and his suspected murderer Henry Moyle, as well as Joseph McCabe, are known to have been volume traders, while few, if any, of the scores of Europeans who passed through the region are likely to have not supplied at least some guns to Batswana. But, with the notable exception of Cumming, most were publicly discreet about such dealings.

Editor's Comment
Inspect the voters' roll!

The recent disclosure by the IEC that 2,513 registrations have been turned down due to various irregularities should prompt all Batswana to meticulously review the voters' rolls and address concerns about rejected registrations.The disparities flagged by the IEC are troubling and emphasise the significance of rigorous voter registration processes.Out of the rejected registrations, 29 individuals were disqualified due to non-existent Omang...

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