Khama uncles to meet Masisi elders
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday April 18, 2022 06:00
Last month, the royal Bangwato uncles revealed that they had given up on efforts to offer mediation and restore unity because Masisi has ignored and show them ambiguous dishonesty and disrespect. Now, in an unusual move, Khama’s uncles are said to be planning to meet Masisi’s royal elders in Moshupa to restart the whole reconciliation talks all over again.
After the talks crumpled last month, the Bangwato royals made it clear that they will consult with the people, something they recently did. Bangwato chief, Khama, who is currently in exile in South Africa, even commended his tribe for following his instruction to hold meetings across Bangwato dikgotla on April 1, 2022. “I am grateful because during the meeting at the main Kgotla in Serowe yesterday, I never heard of any incident about indecent behaviour, disrespect or any hate speech. I hope the same thing did cut across all dikgotla outside Serowe,” Khama posted on Facebook recently.
It is said that among other resolutions made during the meetings was to meet Masisi’s Bakgatla Ba-ga Mmanaana elders and find other ways to reconcile the once close two leaders.
The main reason the Bangwato royal uncles rejected Masisi’s decision to appoint the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Kgotla Autlwetse as a mediator on the matter was because they said the latter was conflicted and is Khama’s subject. “Our second bone of contention with the President’s attitude was that he has relegated a matter that was for his personal attention to his conflicted emissary in Autlwetse who is a Mongwato subject of Khama and therefore, neither qualified to adjudicate on an issue of his master nor acceptable to us as the royal uncles on the account of cultural fact and protocol,” Kgosi Mokhutshwane Sekgoma stated on behalf of the Khama’s uncles.
Speaking of cultural fact and protocol, the uncles are said to be now ready to sit down with royals in Moshupa in an attempt to talk to a person on their level as opposed to Autlwetse. Sekgoma made it clear that the reason they rejected Autlwetse as a minister was because their issue was not even supposed to be classified as a chieftainship matter, but they instead wanted to talk to Masisi at the level of elders in the belief that the latter understood that this would be the way to resolve the stand-off.
Since the first meetings on April 1, 2022, a source has revealed that so many ideas were put on the table and as the Setswana saying “Mafoko a kgotla mantle otlhe” many ideas were considered but among the chief ones it was agreed to organise talks with Masisi’s elders in Moshupa. Contacted for comment, Bangwato Regent Sediegeng Kgamane told Mmegi that he does not know anything about any talks scheduled for Moshupa anytime soon.