General Khama is the most photogenic soldier

Richard Moleofe | Friday March 3, 2017 15:53

February 27 marked the day our President was born and social media was abuzz with congratulatory notes for him. I wonder if H.E is on Whatsapp because obviously he would come nowhere near Facebook. The messages were all sweet and I wish he had a peep on them to see how some of these young people adore him.

I am certain that General Khama is not on Facebook because he is very much conservative. When he was Commander at BDF, he resisted having a PC in his office. An IT technician had to prepare a whole presentation to justify the reason for kitting General Khama with a PC. He said he preferred keeping all his information on files. Brigadier Albert Scheffers had a mountain of work in convincing General Khama on acquiring a computer.

He was somewhat right because the German Intelligence Service has gone back to typing all the top secret documents using the old typewriter. That came after they realised that the Americans were all over them through the work of NSA. By the way, President Thabo Mbeki was heavily criticised for opening a Facebook page back in the days. And now it is Donald Trump with his almost daily tweets that often cause so much consternation. I looked at General Khama’s different pictures on his birthday and I thought they looked great. This is one soldier who has a long history and a close relationship with the lens men. One of his top priorities while at BDF was to be accompanied by the best photographer in every one of his trips. He moved around with a big team that included cooks and mechanics amongst others. But his top priority was to always get the best photographer.

One of his preferred photographers was nicknamed Skupu. After his usual end of year trips to the border areas, General Khama’s first request upon their return would be for the photos to get developed as soon as possible.

General Khama grew up as royalty and he has had so many photographs of himself taken in his youth. I thought by the time he reached the top echelons of power in Botswana’s military he would have had enough of pictures of himself.

Surprisingly, there are very few pictures of him in civis from the 1970s. But there is a great collection of his pictures in military fatigues. One of my favourite is the one where he stood still in a pensive mood beside the mass grave of the Lesoma ambush victims. The picture is in black and white and I wish I could establish who the photographer was. If you go to the National Archives and request for General Khama’s old pictures, you will be amazed to learn that a good majority of them show him in his military uniform.

By the way, I am a seasoned photographer and I used to enjoy taking sneak previews of his photos before they could be taken to his office upstairs. By all measure and standard the man is photogenic. He doesn’t only like pictures, but he appears modestly in them.

During our days at BDF, it was tradition for General Khama to address troops across the country. He was always surrounded by senior officers as well as BDF’s press corps. And because he enjoyed the limelight, I thought he would continue be very close to the media at the time he is President. I would somewhat agree with those who have labelled him as a man who has phobia for the media.

One of the things that General Khama has extended patience on is posing for photographs. During his annual trips around the country, soldiers were lining up for a photo with Morena. For some of us who were meeting him everyday at BDF HQ, this was nothing special.

But remember that General Khama held this superhero status when we grew up. So for many soldiers, meeting him in person was such a privilege. As boys at primary school we used to be told of General Khama’s heroic deeds. He once took on a whole platoon of the Rhodesian Army and prevailed. It was only after I studied tactics that I realised the story didn’t add up.

General Khama did not just like pictures; they also helped him to make certain decisions. Because he could not be in all places at the same time, pictures would be brought to him to assess things. Road accidents involving BDF vehicles were usually photographed for the commander to appreciate the situation.

The Military Chief of Intelligence always arrived at his briefings with a briefcase full of photographs. In those years MI depended entirely on the use of the tape recorder and the camera. Of course there were other gadgets in use for information gathering.

I wonder if General Khama is himself a good photographer. I personally love photos of myself and I am also an avid photographer. I remember that General Pheto is a photographer as well. He joined BDF after a short stint with the Department of Information and Broadcasting. A few years ago when I began my relationship with this publication, the news editor, Douglas Tsiako shared a joke with me regarding General Pheto. He said when General Pheto joined the military, they wondered if he was ever going to make good grades at the firing range because he used to miss targets with his camera whilst still a journalist.

By the way, Sandy Grant is one of the people I look up to and he is such a good photographer. I always enjoy looking at his archives of photograph. By the way, before General Khama could retire at BDF, he toured all garrisons and had the patience to go through a long photo session with all soldiers who wished to be photographed with him.