The real reason for the protectorate

Chippa Legodimo | Friday January 30, 2015 14:44

A close analysis of the past will show that the establishment of the protectorate was only adopted to protect the British trade interests.

As history has taught many of us, the Whites’ main interest was the route to the north, which facilitated a lucrative trade with the northern states.

A local curator Boipelo Oitsile told attendants at the Liberation Heritage workshop at Oasis Motel on Friday that the British had tried to incorporate what is modern day Botswana into South Africa.

 This, she argued, was a clear indication that the British wanted to protect their own interests instead of those of Batswana.

She, however, acknowledged the three Dikgosi (Bathoen I, Sebele I and Khama III) for being visionaries who took steps to stop the Boers from incorporating Botswana territory into their country.

“If it were not for the three dikgosi Botswana would have been possibly divided between South Africa and the Germans in the then German South West Africa (Namibia). They also protested when Cecil John Rhodes, through his British South Africa Company, wanted to incorporate Botswana into South Africa,” she said.She also noted that the three dikgosi put the colonisers in a tight corner when they refused to join World War I under the Smuts-led Boer troops, but chose to contribute 10,000 Batswana men to the British forces.

“By so doing they were emphasising their loyalty to the British, but were well aware that the colonisers only offered protection because of their own trade interests,” she said.

She also noted that in documenting Botswana’s heritage there was need to include early history. 

Such was the likes of the Battle of Dimawe in which Kgosi Sechele I of Bakwena led a contingent of fighters to defeat the Boers who tried to grab land around Mmankgodi and Manyana from Batswana.

Former Botswana Television newsman Oteng Mokowe expressed concern that Botswana’s liberation history was not well preserved and documented.

“I would like to urge the curriculum development unit to ensure that there is more of our own history in there. Look, we have a man among us here who was part of the South African liberation struggle.  He even spent some time in Robben Island, but where do young people learn about that,” he said pointing at veteran politician, Michael Dingake.

Mokowe also gave an example of a site in Francistown where people were bombed and killed by the agents of the apartheid regime, which he said was not properly marked or protected.

“Imagine I know that some people were also killed at a certain spot in Broadhurst in the 1980s, but I cannot show it to a tourist,” he said.