Open letter to Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili
Correspondent | Wednesday June 22, 2016 15:29
One year later, despite professionally and objectively evidenced subjection to various forms of torture, and notwithstanding directives of national law courts and advice of international investigations, they have suffered neither the relief of being under open arrest while awaiting prosecution of their indictments, nor given their freedom, nor speedily brought to court in a transparent, unbiased and competent jurisdiction so that justice can be served.
The Hon. Minister of Defence and National Security Tseliso Mokhosi dismisses casually the heart-rending cry of our parents for unrequited and complete justice that appears so to all dispassionate and disinterested onlookers; and labels it a cruel and self-serving, profiteering crusade by their legal representatives to syphon maximum cash from their clients by protracting the cases. To our awareness, our parents’ core demand for a transparent course of justice is that they be prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced by persons other than the named members of their court martial with whom they had adversarial relations.
These include persons with whom they had clashed in the past, and indeed those on whom the accused were explicitly charged of seeking to kill in the present case. This is universally known as conflict of interest, and consciously defeating the ends of justice in this case. This might not be the predetermined outlook of the Minister and / or Commander, but it is a precept of law that justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done. Our parents are also understandably keen to avoid a charge that, having timeously foreseen this eventuality, they nevertheless waived their inalienable right to challenge it, and therefore might be reasonably interpreted as disingenuous.
The delayed prosecution of these cases reminds us of the words of the Honourable Minister of Police early at the announcement of the now “notorious” Phumaphi Commission that the outcomes of the commission’s work would not be prosecutable. While the commission concluded that contrary to the suspicions of the LDF command there could be no substance to the mutiny charges, it would be only proper to promptly dispose of this matter without a cloud of suspicion so as to avoid the charge of stonewalling the truth to anoint the minister’s prediction as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By his own admission in the media (Harvest FM, 14/3/16) the Minister of Defence has said the detainees were not released to testify at the Commission because that could have weakened the command’s case against them.
While our parents continue to wallow in their extended anxiety, they also suffer arbitrary restriction and / or violation of their rights, to wit: (1) some have developed illnesses they didn’t have before, like diabetes and high blood pressure; and exhibit visible signs of distress like loss of weight and drastic change of complexion; (2) they complain of being denied food and medicine for flippant causes like not watering spinach, and the fact that families speak of their condition to the media; (3) they are intermittently placed on solitary confinement, denied visit to doctors, and warm bedding; (4) their families are forced to visit them in pairs and sometimes await pair-partners for up to several hours, with no privacy under the shadow of heavily armed guards and glare of their prying eyes and have to speak in codes; (5), as a result families have to ask for too much time from workplaces, school, etc. for visitation because of time spent, with very actual contact time with detainees, and we forget talking points because we are always frightened.
This ordeal has also naturally registered at the household level. These are only some of the ramifications: (1) some young persons are left to be de facto heads of households as second parents were already departed or succumbed to the strain of this ordeal; (2) loss of workplace or school performance rate because such caregivers or affected family members are disoriented and depressed; (3) loss of community warmth, as the families are viewed suspiciously as result of taunts thrown at detainees in the media, which has extended to unease between formerly intimate families of the victims and arresters; (4) trauma sustained by some of our younger siblings are worse; some are reported crying at school, are moved to fear and feberu during and after visits, whenever things are hard at home some cry for their fathers.
Mr Prime Minister, we believe it is not beyond your authority, power and will to dispense with this irritating matter in a way that will heal the wounds of division, mutual suspicion, and eternal dispossession. We accept that the government might be convinced that our parents are held in the interest of justice, and that neither they nor we can be judges in their case; the same way that they contend against their accusers presiding over their own case; but we also sincerely believe you know that justice delayed is justice denied. We therefore appeal to you to prevail over the relevant authorities, the cabinet and LDF command to at the least place our parents under open arrest, so that they don’t continue to suffer the untold hardships even without condemnation by a competent court; and to remove all hurdles to a transparent course of justice.
Today it is “Fathers’ Day” and we are without our fathers. Is this justice? As a father you surely would not wish the same on your children.
Children of the detained soldiers
Lesotho