Khama explains handshake with Masisi
Innocent Selatlhwa | Tuesday August 22, 2023 06:00
Khama shared that during the 43rd Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit in Angola on Thursday, where he was an invitee, the interaction occurred.
“After receiving the award and standing with the leaders on the stage for a photograph. We were invited to take our seats. On my way back to my seat where he and others were seated and he called out his congratulations to me as I was passing by him. So I turned to acknowledge him as he came out of his seat to shake my hand, followed by some other leaders,” Khama explained.
Khama clarified that he and Masisi briefly met again in a holding room before the event. Contrary to rumours, there was no official meeting between the two. Instead, Khama recounted an unusual encounter with Peter Magosi, the director general of the Directorate on Intelligence and Security (DIS). “I had an unexpected and what turned out to be a strange meeting with Magosi which made me weary of his intentions when he offered to give me DIS bodyguards who he had come with from Botswana to be with me just for the Angola trip.
I had been warned earlier of something about them whilst in the country and as such turned down the offer as it was completely nonsensical and suspicious,” he said. Regarding a previous incident, during SADC’s 42nd Summit last year, Sir Seretse Khama’s family was not present when the founding fathers were honoured.
This led to a dispute between SADC and the Botswana government over the responsibility for inviting the family. SADC emphasised that states were accountable for inviting the appropriate individuals to accept awards.
Khama’s family eventually received the award from the SADC secretariat, but the handling of the situation sparked controversy. On finally receiving the award, Khama used the opportunity to criticise Masisi's administration. “I reflect on how they ever thought that the day would not come when the award would eventually be given to the family as it now has been.
What did they achieve by trying to prevent us from receiving the award that came about as a SADC resolution for all such families to be informed and facilitated by their respective governments to receive them in the DRC last year? But as we were the only ones not given the award and now the only ones to receive it this year, it was a more personal occasion,” he said.
The 42nd Summit in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated the founding leaders of Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—Dr Agostino Neto, Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, and Robert Mugabe, respectively. These leaders were honoured last year in August in Kinshasa, as pioneers of the regional economic bloc and leaders of the Frontline States that established the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC) in 1980.