The media at war with the military
Richard Moleofe | Friday June 10, 2016 12:44
I do get feedback as often on the things I write about in this column. The above quotation came from a son of a Botswana Defence Force officer who lived in the privileged residential area set aside for senior officers at Sir Seretse Khama Barracks.
He posted this on my Twitter handle as he is living abroad of our borders. However, he has chosen to be anonymous for fear of being victimised by those who may not feel at peace with the information he has shared. Surely, this lad comes from an era when the media had no interaction with the military and hence he still holds the tradition of not being associated with the news media. I will respect his position.
I did not want to be dragged into writing things I have not fully researched on and that particularly goes for the South African commando raids. There is so much wealth of information surrounding this subject and my time will come to reveal a lot about this subject matter in this same space.
Getting back to the issue of Botswana’s military and the media, there is still a lot that needs to be achieved in order to normalise the sour relations. One officer who helped to bridge the existing gap was Colonel Mogorosi Baatweng. Years ago his service was cut short by a debilitating disease that has confined him to his home. He was retired the following year after a long anticipation for his recovery.
Regarding these raids, Colonel Baatweng is one officer who wanted a lot to be said and documented on what happened at the time. When he was doing his staff course in the South African Naval College in Muizenburg, Cape Town, he was able to glean on some very valuable information regarding the commandos that participated in the raids. Both of us were in Cape Town and he could not hold back after he visited the Special Forces base of the supposed raiders.
Colonel Baatweng was the best Public Relations Officer BDF has ever had and it’s a pity he did not run the whole course. When one sees the mediocrity at that office today, you wish Colonel Baatweng could be back at BDF HQ.
Last week I mentioned that Colonel Baatweng burnt his fingers by advising Lieutenant General Fisher against coming too close to the news media personnel. Baatweng simply wanted Fisher to run a clear line of demarcation between his social life and what was termed to be official. Because Baatweng belonged to the inner circle of Fisher’s social life, the PR Officer became uneasy at the way journalists were asking questions seeking official response at the Officer’s Mess, he revealed.
Otherwise Baatweng encouraged open interaction between the BDF leadership and the media when everybody else was sober, a position I shared at the time.
He wanted private life to be separated from official life even though soldiers are supposed to be on duty 24 hours. However, I could declare with a high degree of confidence that General Fisher and Colonel Baatweng were the best Commander and PR Officer BDF ever had. They made a great team.
When looking at the military in a wider context, this institution has now established warm relations with the news media. In the West, it is the weapons manufacturers who have created this thawing of relations. While the military wanted to remain secretive about their weapons systems, the manufacturers wanted to go as public as they could in order to attract sales from other countries.
On the other hand, the military has used its relationship with the media in order to achieve its propaganda objectives. The media may be used to transmit propaganda for the military. It is usually not something that the two parties agree on, but it happens.
During the Gulf War in 1991 and as well as Operation Desert Shield which was a prelude to this war, the media was at its best in war. The US military allowed the free flow of information from the battlefield to the homes of millions of Americans and others around the world.
The effect back home was huge. The American taxpayer was in concert with what the military was doing as well as what they were not doing with their tax dollars. There was also a leap in the levels of trust and confidence in the US military by the civilian population because through the media they came to understand how the war was progressing.
For the modern generals, courting the news media is the best strategy in winning wars as well as winning hearts and minds of the civilian population. During the acclaimed Exercise Matsubutsubu in 2007 which was planned and executed under the watch of General Mokgware, I was given the responsibility of watching over a subset operation of winning hearts and minds of the local population. This involved testing people for HIV, checking for vital signs at the different clinics as well as providing medical staff to help assuage the shortages in the rural medical facilities.
The US military does take the factor of the media very seriously particularly since the end of the Vietnam War. Their generals are in close contact with the media and are able to field questions in press conferences.
Regarding Mxolisi Mgxashe (Botswana Guardian) who was deported in 1986 for asking General Merafhe wrong questions, the fellow came back to Botswana after 1994 and met up with Daniel Kwelagobe who was instrumental in his deportation order as Minister of Presidential Affairs which housed the Department of Information.