Botswana needs to strengthen border security management
Solly Rakgomo | Monday August 1, 2022 06:00
It is equally vital for the citizens to know that along with traditional threats to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a state, it also envisages the non-traditional threats in many forms, which include transnational organised crime.
For the past few years, it has been proved that among these transnational organised crime threats, it is the illicit and proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons that has gained prominence as a serious threat to Botswana’s national security.
The spate of cash heists and blasting of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) at various parts of Botswana has become a new normal, which averages two or three armed robberies per week.
This is in addition to other crimes such as poaching and domestic violence. Along the way, millions of pulas have been lost to these criminal entities.
These acts of criminality are perpetrated by sophisticated networks of transnational criminal entities who smuggle arms into Botswana for the sole purpose of committing crimes.
It is very common that these criminals use ungazzetted entry points to gain their way into Botswana from neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe and others.
The main question that comes to mind is how is it possible that transnational organised criminals find it easy to gain entry into Botswana? Botswana has very long and porous borders with many ungoverned spaces due to among others the difficult – to – access terrain by law enforcement officers, inadequate human and material resources and related technologies (such as drones) for effective surveillance and monitoring. In addition, Botswana official border posts have many loopholes such as resource constraints in terms of advanced technology and expertise as well as complicity by some government security agencies and customs officials to corrupt behaviour.
It is worthy to note that these transnational criminals who smuggle small arms and light weapons into the country are very well aware of these inherent border security management weaknesses hence their ability to manipulate those weaknesses with deadly effect.
From this, one can safely argue that this weak border security management has provided an unhindered trafficking of small arms and light weapons from neighbouring countries and those weapons are eventually being used to carry out some heinous criminal activities in Botswana and the phenomenon has some serious national security implications to Botswana.
In order to address this glaring security challenge, the Botswana government should understand that ensuring effective border security and management is essential for preventing and countering the flow of illicit arms that are used for various criminal activities.
Botswana needs to do more to strengthen her border security management strategies. There is an urgent need to invest in technological applications such as unmanned drones along the country’s vast and porous borders for intelligence gathering of any suspicious activities.
These drone technology should be able to adequately send signals to law enforcement agencies who in this cases are Rapid Response Teams stationed at strategic points along different border posts and police stations around the country. Depending on the terrain and the distance, the Rapid Response Teams should either use strategic helicopters or official vehicles to attend to the security situation on the ground.
For this kind of strategy to be effective, there must be commitment from the government to invest money to acquire the technology and related resources that are required and this can go a long way in Botswana’s long-term fight against transnational arms smugglers along our porous borders.
Even though this strategy has its own weaknesses, it has proved to be successful in the USA where law enforcement agencies apply it to combat transnational crime along the USA-Mexico Border. Technology must also be applied efficiently at our border posts.
For example, there is a need for the use of CCTV cameras, which are covertly manned on a full time basis by law enforcement officers and experts in criminal science and psychology with the strong ability to spot unusual behaviour form those who enter and leave Botswana. In addition, there is need for arms detection X-rays as most of these small arms and light weapons can easily be concealed both within vehicles, luggage and body.
Botswana must also have a national and international front line data base access where border officers can screen people’s travelling documents, goods and vehicles against millions of Interpol records. As a member of Interpol, Botswana has real time access to Interpol range of criminal databases, which contain millions of records contributed by many countries.
These border checks against Interpol databases provide information in real time allowing law enforcement officers to detain potential criminals on the spot. Besides this much needed technology, law enforcement officers must value the essence of strong and constant visibility at the different border posts with robust stop and search operations. This visibility has the potential to send a strong message to potential criminals of the risk of smuggling small arms and light weapons into the country.
However, all these strategies mentioned requires a strong inter-agency collaboration between the different security agencies to share experience, resources and expertise in their collective efforts to effectively manage border security in Botswana.
Most importantly, there must be commitment and political goodwill from all the stakeholders involved as these strategies are meant for the national security interest of Botswana.
As a parting shot, the government of Botswana must understand that protecting Botswana’s borders from the illegal movement of weapons, which causes serious security problems, while promoting lawful entry and exit, is essential to homeland security, economic prosperity and national sovereignty.