Organised crime-a threat to Botswana’s national security
Solly Rakgomo | Monday April 11, 2022 06:00
In the past, existential threats were mainly from external state actors who were a danger to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a nation state. For example, a country like Botswana used to be surrounded by hostile regimes in the form of Apartheid South Africa in the South and an aggressive white minority regime in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), who used to carry out cross border invasions into Botswana resulting in many human casualties and destruction of infrastructure.
Furthermore, civil wars in neighbouring Mozambique and Angola, together with the liberation war in Namibia meant that at the time Botswana was existing in a hostile environment. These were real national security threats at the time.
However, in the contemporary era, threats have evolved from inter-state conflict to new or non-traditional security threats where non-state actors are the primary actors. The rise in technology in the past 40 years has improved communication and travel and these technologies have given a boost to illicit activities to run alongside those licit ones.
Organised criminal activities from local and international non-state actors involved in the smuggling of small arms and light weapons, armed robberies, trafficking of persons, smuggling of counterfeit goods, cyber-crime, poaching are taking advantage of these technologies in communication to cause havoc to human populations across the African continent.
These threats impact very negatively on human security hence the need for a human-centred approach to mitigating against those threats. Of recent, Botswana’s financial institutions and business entities have suffered a spate of armed robberies. Those involved in these criminal activities are locals and some foreign nationals who make these organised criminal activities to have a transnational outlook. These transnational criminal gangs are well equipped with different skills that complement the way they operate or carry out their activities with devastating effect. The spate of armed robberies have exposed the vulnerabilities of private security companies due to their poor training, lack of suitable resources (such as arms and technology) and downright infiltration but some elements involved in these criminal activities.
The desperate situation has led to private financial institutions to involve the Botswana Defence Force and the Botswana Police Service to provide armed assistance to private security companies involved in cash-in-transit.
A country such as Botswana is vulnerable to organised crime in multiple ways. First and foremost transnational criminal syndicates have that huge capacity to adapt to new technologies and use their innovative skills to hack computer systems, defraud people, the government and other financial institutions such as banks.
Secondly, most of Botswana’s security agencies face a challenge of resource constraints. Security agencies in Botswana do not have the advanced technological infrastructure and the technical know-how to match the advanced innovation from organised criminal syndicates. This has resulted in many internet based crime flourishing and causing socio-economic harm to local populations without being detected.
Thirdly, Botswana’s vulnerability is due to poor border controls as the country has long borders with many ungoverned spaces which are manipulated by organised criminals to cross into Botswana for illegal activities. A good example is the porous borders in the North West, which in most cases poachers from many parts of Africa use to enter Botswana and engage in poaching of rhino horn and elephant tusks.
Poachers are a threat to the economy of this country hence poaching should be classified as a threat to national security. Other ungoverned spaces along Botswana’s borders with South Africa and Zimbabwe make it easier for organised criminals to smuggle a plethora of contraband, which include small arms and light weapons, counterfeit cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, etc. with ease.
Fourth, there is corruption within some of Botswana’s security agencies and some public officials who receive bribes from organised criminals. The corrupt symbiotic relationship amongst public officials, security agencies and organised criminals makes Botswana to be more vulnerable to these criminal activities because the criminals will always evade a strong arm of the law.
In addition Batswana as a nation are in most cases passive to reporting these criminal acts. It is common to find illegal activities such as sale of harmful substances, illegal foreign exchange going on in full glare of the public with no one willing to report such activities to law enforcement agencies even though such illegal activities impact negatively on their socio-economic well-being. Some locals say they don’t report such activities because of fear of reprisals.
The threat of transnational crime to Botswana’s national security is very real as it impacts on human populations and affects all the seven dimensions of human security (economy, social, environment, personal, community, health, political). For example, trafficking in small arms and light weapons is a threat to public safety of citizens as in most cases these weapons are used in armed robberies and domestic violence. On the other hand poaching targets the tourism industry, which is the second largest earner of GDP. Poaching threatens a source of public revenue that is badly needed to finance public goods such as health, education, housing and social safety nets.
These threats require that Botswana should develop a national security strategy and policy that can go a long way in combating transnational crime. This is a clarion call for Botswana to re-think and re-map its national security strategies but most importantly acknowledge organised crime as a serious threat to national security.