We are sorry for what happened to Mr Kalafatis

| Wednesday June 3, 2009 00:00

 

Although the facts remain hidden in the fog, it is clear that a man is dead, the manner of his death as extraordinary as the circumstances in which he met his death.

To the Kalafatis family, there is nothing I can say to tranquilise your pain, or to inspire your hope in your own country or revive the happy experiences you knew with your son. 

Still, I cannot restrain myself from intimating to you, how ashamed I am at what has happened to your son on my country's soil.  Many citizens, older and younger than I am, apolitical and political, from the opposition parties and from those with whom I am a member of the BDP are anguished and traumatised by the tragic experience in which your son lost his life so unfairly and brutishly.

The case of Kalafatis is now rightly in the hands of the courts, where the wisdom of justice will reveal truth, and the wrath of the law shall manifest.  But we know that when a life is lost, no form of human justice will breathe life back into that life.  The next best justice, then, is to live a life of promise, the promise that we never have to lose our sons and daughters in this way.  I know well that I am not qualified to narrate about the killing of Kalafatis, because my knowledge of the law is weak. My knowledge of what may have happened is weaker, and my knowledge of how the executive branch of Government's security cluster operates is embarrassing.  But my faith in the potential of our nation to achieve its ideals is strong.  

At the heart of our country's legacy are several ideals: the ideal that we can express our minds and hearts fully, and participate in the political process without fear of retribution:  the promise that those who violate our rights unfairly will face the wisdom and wrath of the law; the ideal that a herd-boy or the domestic worker who exhibits talent can rise to the highest offices on our land or that we don't need anyone's favour to reach our full potential; the promise that honest men and women with initiative and ideas can succeed in enterprise; the promise that we will live harmoniously and peacefully in our cultural and ethnic diversity, protected from visible and invisible enemies by our state; and the promise that we are free to pursue happiness in our spirits as we may understand it to mean.  They may not be written down, but these are the promises of the land of our fathers.  I still believe in these promises.  I still believe in these ideals.

But these are mere ideals, and do not reflect where we are.  We have not perfected our way of achieving them.  In fact, we are far short of achieving some of our ideals.  The duty of every generation is step forward and reach closer to these ideals than the generation before.

When our predecessors laid the cornerstones of our constitution, premised on the separation of powers among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, they demonstrated a remarkable foresight with which they envisaged that their country will meet the sternest tests.  They understood that from time to time, those privileged enough to be elected to public office or employed by the public service, or those learned and accomplished enough to form the judiciary, or those in the legislative branch, will not always execute their mandates in the spirit of our nation's ideals.  In extreme cases, the actions of these individuals or those working under them will temper with our ideals through the blatant abuse of power, by a misinterpretation their duties, incompetence or sheer negligence.  In such instances, the one branch of Government would serve to counter the excesses of the other.

This kind of foresight did not arise as an expression of a desire for these extreme cases to materialise, nor did our predecessors hope that these cases should arise.  On the contrary, they prayed that no such eventualities occurred, but still, they anticipated that the extreme cases would occur.

Yes, we are fortunate to have inherited a system of checks of balances.  Even so, the achievement of our ideals requires trust - a trustworthiness of and trust in the individuals who must carry out the mandates envisaged by the constitution.  This is what our predecessors could not have possibly handed to us, because our own value system is what should inform who we appoint to public office, or to political office or to other key offices in the life of our nation.  It is also by the prism of our value system that we will hold these public trustees and ourselves to account.

When anyone is killed by the security forces or any other person on our land, it is an excess, especially when the victim is said to have been converted into a magnet of a spray of bullets.  Our system should never have to allow such excesses to occur or in rare cases where they occur, our system should send a tangible and unflinching signal, that this is not acceptable and will never be acceptable. The courts are just one part of that system.

Our system also guarantees that citizens, political formations and non-governmental organisations can express themselves freely without fear of retribution.  Even ordinary members of the BDP such as I, can cherish the liberty to express strong sentiments about lapses in branches of Government without fear that they will be victimized or tossed from the party.  These are the ideals that allow us, BDP and BNF, BCP and MELS, Law Society and journalists, citizens and tourists as well as all fair-minded citizens of the world, to come together, side by side, singing the same song, that what happened to Kalafatis was and is wrong.

I embrace wholeheartedly that what has happened is wrong, and I do so with the firm belief that most citizens, and most of my colleagues in the BDP share my sentiments.  I express this confidence without any sense of inhibition or conceit, because I come from a generation that understands that we face a task to surpass the achievements of the generation before it. 

It is becoming hip and fashionable to blame our military, police and other security officers for causing unease in our country.  Our cousins, nephews, uncles and aunts - pleasant and conscientious fellows (and ladies) - are members of the various security forces on security duty.  Many of them are, in fact, all that any parent could have hoped for in their children.

Their patriotism and sense of duty to protect us is what inspired them to enlist.  Most are well-trained and professional in what they do.  When we blame all of them for what a few rogues among them do or for the actions of vicious elements in the various echelons of the executive branch's hierarchy, we are failing them.  When some of us in the hierarchy of the executive give them orders that trample on the ideals of our beautiful land, we are failing them.  Yes, those who choose to take the easy way out by following orders that are inhumane must themselves face the wrath of the law and the anger of our people.  They must brace to the truth that it is an anger that stems not from a venomous hatred for them, but an anger that wells up as a by-product of our faith in the ideals of our nation.

I still hold that our security forces are professional and well-trained.    When the commander of the army and the commissioner of police come out to say they did not order any shooting, I take them at their word.  For them to have come out in that way, despite the mystery around the action of their own men, is in fact, testimony that these two are professional and honest in what they do.  I read their actions to mean that they refuse to pretend that there was no miscarriage of order. 

The recent creation of the Directorate of Intelligence Services byAct of Parliament is the new centre of political storm.  The blatant omission of a Parliamentary oversight body to supervise intelligence operations envisaged under the law has exposed the body to bitter criticism, ridicule and mistrust.  The omission also means intelligence activities may stretch far beyond the reach of the necessary checks and balances against excess or abuse.  Those in the executive must understand that these circumstances cultivate, understandably, a fertile ground for suspicion, conspiracy manufacture, rumour-mongering, fear and speculation.  This is the dark cloud that now engulfs our nation.
This is a time when our people need to hear from a Parliamentary oversight body, but it is nowhere.  They would have been accountable to the public, but they are not there.  They would have provided comfort, but they are not there.  They would have dispelled the rumours, the speculations and the fear, but they are not there.   The executive cannot expect to allay the fear and the suspicion that is now smoldering, until (at a minimum) they cause the establishment of the parliamentary oversight body to supervise intelligence operations.  

Some journalists rightly ask the question if this killing has not dented Botswana's standing on the world stage.  Although the question was not directed to me, the answer is an unambiguous, yes it has.  In South Africa alone, the news have been received with shock and astonishment.

Some in the opposition parties proceed to say, in this year of elections, the best way to remedy all that is distasteful is to elect a new political party to run the country.  It is a view expressed by some of those who are aggrieved by the latest developments.  But our common position on the wrongs that are simmering does not mean we have to agree with the idea that the BDP is no longer relevant.

It is true that current events are tragic; they are also an unmistakable reminder that we must never take for granted the overbearing responsibility on ourselves, occasioned by the right to elect individuals to political offices or in some cases the privilege to deploy individuals to public and private offices.   The ideals we believe in, therefore, force us to be uncompromising in our push for people who exhibit competence, integrity, conscience, humility, moral fibre, vision and diligence.

The ruling party, the BDP, must be exemplary in this regard, within its own structures.  I am proud without any sense of reservation or conceit, that I have done my part in pushing forward some of my contemporaries, young but not so young anymore, for positions in the party and for Parliament. I have done so with such clear conscience and without any fear of being called one name or another.  At a time when our party, the BDP, at this generational turn, needs to re-create its excellence, rejuvenate from its lapses and restore its connection with our nation, it is necessary to unearth the next generation's luminaries from among those who are as passionate about and capable of propagating our national ideals.

But I also recognise that no institution runs only on its new brooms, and that, in dozes, there is no substitute to the blessings and wisdom of veterans.  The veterans who deserve to read the book of wisdom to the upcoming luminaries are of course those who have consistently shown that service comes before position, vision outflanks whim, principle supersedes opportunity for power and that our national ideals cannot be bargained off.  In resigning or being relieved from his cabinet position (I haven't asked him which it is for fear he might accuse me of being a forward young man), I sense there is a suggestion that Kwelagobe has acted to defy the leadership of the BDP or of Government.  I find that, on the contrary, he has demonstrated the attributes of a man committed to the ideals of our nation.   Any man or woman who exudes such a spirit, can count on my unwavering goodwill.  There are, of course others, within and outside Government and Parliament, whose lives deserve to be cherished.

Therein lays the strength of BDP - depth and breath, diversity and competing schools of thought, wisdom of age and youthful energy, the humility to admit lapses and ability to correct the lapses, team ethic, clear vision as well as the ability to recreate excellence.   The parliamentary candidacy in the cities and towns of the best among our colleagues is not intended to annihilate the opposition - it represents an attempt to fill Parliament with a full strength BDP.  Tethered to a full strength BDP are the party's finest attributes, its rich depth and breath, its diversity of view, its wisdom and its youthful energy, its humility and its dedication to our national ideals.

My generation of colleagues also realises that we will not always get our way nor will our ideas always be right or better than others within or outside the BDP.  In circumstances where our stance is drowned by decisions of our party leadership or the legislature or of Government, the ideals of our nation demand of us a respect for those decisions and for the people who may have made them. Committing to the ideals of our nation means we also must respect the due processes of the land even where we may bitterly differ with the specific outcomes of those processes. 

A few weeks ago, Parliament debated in favour of changing the law to pave the way for an increase in the number of specially-elected Members of Parliament from four to eight. 

The leadership of the BDP argued that this was necessary to augment the participation of women in the political process.  It is a position that I am at odds with, for its untimely nature and for the inherently undemocratic odour of specially elected provisions.  It creates an unfair voting balance in favour of any ruling party, in this case our party.  

The ideals of our nation require that everyone in our nation including opposition parties, be treated fairly.  My parents taught me that it is better to lose fairly and with dignity than win unfairly or on account of an undeserved favour (in fact I was not allowed to eat the stew next door even though I knew it was porridge I was going back to at home, having earned it by weeding the family yard).  In any case, if we needed to be as urgent in bringing more women into the political mainstream, then we ought to be happy with accepting the nomination of only women (all four) to specially-elected seats without having to increase the number of seats.  Despite these differences, our generation understands that we need to defer to the due processes of the land and respect the trustees of those institutions as purveyors of alternative ideas. 

This is how our country functions and this is how it should function.  And indeed, this is how the BDP functions.  If our idea is drowned and rejected, it does not mean those who reject them are intent on punishing us, it simply means their way prevailed.  If we believe so much in our idea, then the responsibility to ensure we prevail is our own.  My contemporaries are learning that sometimes it takes time - years - decades even - to build castles from which to nourish the ideals of our nation.  Our patient faith should not be mistaken to mean that we are a somnolent generation. 

I have been inundated with calls and correspondence from many young people in particular about recent developments in Botswana.  One young student disturbed my baby-like sleep in a bitter cold night this past week by a text message in which she told how petrified she was by her country Botswana.  At the end, the student then asked 'so, do you still believe in the ideals you so often espouse?  Please write something, please say something, whatever it is, it will make my friends and I feel better'.

Yes, I still believe in these ideals.  I have faith in the people of Botswana, in the young people of Botswana and in our generation.  I have faith in my generation of colleagues in the BDP.  With our minds, hearts and words, our generation will, to borrow the words of Winston Churchill, come together to fight the contest of hearts on the river banks, landing grounds, in fields, in streets, in ghettos and on the hills (for the ideals of this beautiful land).

Ndaba Gaolathe
He writes in his personal capacity.