An appraisal of DK's legacy in the BDP and government

Dr John Makgala * | Friday July 20, 2007 00:00

Such politicians tend to command the respect of the people including their detractors even if to their policies or leadership style may have brought problems and misery their organisations. Perhaps the University of Botswana ought to be thinking along the lines of bestowing an honorary PhD on Kwelagobe for the service he has provided this country.
I had intended to begin this piece with a small account of DK's service as a Cabinet Minister in the late President Sir Seretse Khama's administration in the 1970s. Of particular interest to me was DK's work during the most trying times when he served as Minister of Information. This was a time when the northeastern part of Botswana was experiencing constant harassment and military assaults by the Rhodesian army. However, my good friend Honourable Botsalo Ntuane covered this in his good account which appeared in the Sunday Standard of last week on DK's life and career.  

Having said that, perhaps I should hasten to point out that this article is a critical assessment of DK's legacy in the BDP and government. Its major argument is that when President Festus Mogae, Lt. Gen. Mompati Merafhe and others who joined the BDP and became MPs in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, they looked like progressive reformers and modernists. This posture and their position against corruption saw them trying their luck for positions in the BDP Central Committee elections. However, they stood no chance against the entrenched party veterans who were used to being returned to their Central Committee positions mostly unopposed. The legitimate ambitions and attempts of the new cohort was bitterly opposed by the veterans who derogatorily referred to their challengers as 'Mannyewane' ('New Ones' or 'New Comers') motivated by wanton opportunism and hell-bent of taking over control of the party.

Things were made worse by release of the Kgabo Report to the public in late 1991. Kwelagobe was implicated in what was seen as illegal land grabbing in villages around Gaborone. This appears to have presented his enemies in the BDP with a 'God sent' opportunity to finish him off. Together with members of his faction, DK toured the country lambasting 'Mannyewane' for plotting to take over the party. This only helped deepen the hostility between the 'new' and old members of the BDP.

DK had come into more prominence following the death of Sir Seretse Khama in 1980. He succeeded President Ketumile Masire as Secretary General of the BDP. This is the most critical position in the party and through it the hard working DK soon commanded strong support and popularity among the BDP's grassroot supporters and foot soldiers. His powerful oratory skills and poise were quite useful at freedom squares. Since 1984, the opposition Botswana National Front (BNF) was gaining a lot of ground in the urban areas which were previously bastions of BDP support. DK was able to use his freedom square talents to counter fiery BNF freedom square giants such as the late Paul Rantao, the late Maitshwarelo Dabutha and Joseph Kavindama among others.

Although the BDP never comprehensively rebutted the BNF's Pamphlet No. 1 document, DK tried on numerous occasions to challenge it.  While his attempts were not intellectually watered and grounded, they were informed by the practical situation on the ground. His was a rough and ready approach which was quite effective in the freedom squares where some BDP activists claimed that according to Pamphlet No. 1 wives and clothes will be shared if the BNF attained state power.

However, from the early 1990s, DK's immense energy, strategies and tactics were mostly directed not to the opposition but to rivals and internal enemies in the BDP. His faction, which had strong support in the BDP and controlled the party, consisted of ruthless schemers who marginalised members of the other faction at every turn. However, the other faction was in control of government which would prove to be the winning card in the long run. This faction, which later went by the name A-Team, had no support of consequence in the BDP. In the late 1990s, DK's faction refused to allow Festus Mogae, who was then Vice President to Sir Ketumile Masire, a free ride into the Chairmanship of the BDP's Central Committee. The Chairmanship position was traditionally associated with the Vice President.

The war of attrition between the two factions intensified.
When Mogae succeeded Masire in 1998, the A-Team stepped up the hostility and fought tooth and nail to wrest control of the party from DK's faction which later styled itself Barata Phathi. The A-Team's control of state resources and appointments to lucrative positions in government and Cabinet saw more and more key members of Barata Phathi decamping to the governing faction. This was evident in 2003 when a legion of Barata Phathi members including DK himself ditched their long time faction mate Ponatshego Kedikilwe at the last minute for the A-Team. The A-Team had also made a sharp U-turn to its pretensions of being a reformist and modernist group. The leading members of this faction became intolerant and ultra-conservative hardliners. Vindictiveness, ruthless marginalisation and humiliation of dissenters in and outside the party became the order of the day. DK himself felt the full wrath of this when he was dropped from Cabinet following the 2004 general elections.

The second argument of this piece is that DK has failed to be a symbol of continuity from Seretse and Masire's administrations into that of Mogae. DK had not been able to become the torch bearer of the good old order in the contemporary BDP and government. This is clear in the manner in which government deals with its perceived enemies. Factional fighting in the BDP seems to be largely responsible for this. The A-Team's intolerance and strategy of humiliating opponents within and outside of the party as well as outside the country can also be attributed to DK to some extent. There are other factors of course.
Throughout generations, Batswana's greatest weapon has not been military might or financial muscle but diplomacy. This brought the country international sympathy, support and goodwill at a time when it was surrounded and given a hard time by ruthless and racist minority regimes in the region. Seretse and later Masire's administrations of which DK was a key member were very careful to avoid international embarrassment and negative publicity at all cost. They were very good at this.

After the BDP won the 1974 general elections with a land slide, Seretse declared in Parliament that under his presidency, Botswana would continue being a multi-party democracy in which civil liberties would be upheld come what may. Phillip Matante, who was the President of the opposition Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) and Leader of Opposition in Parliament and a very harsh critic of the BDP, praised Seretse and the BDP. He thanked the BDP for having tolerated his criticism even when he said the party was a puppet of Western imperial control. DK was there.

Today there is strong concern nationally and internationally that civil liberties are facing serious erosion in Botswana. The Botswana Congress Party (BCP) has come up with its own 'Pamphlet No. 1' on this. The BDP has not systematically and comprehensibly challenged the BCP paper but has decided to freedom square it instead.     

During the 1970s, apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia always accused Botswana government of aiding liberation movement guerrilla fighters by providing them with training camps and supplies. The government was at pains trying to deny these charges. In order to prove that Botswana government had nothing to hide, it readily allowed foreign journalists including obvious spies of the apartheid government easy access to interview Seretse at his office. DK was Minister of Information during this time.

Local journalists led by Ephraim Setshwaelo always complained about foreign journalists having easy access to the President while local journalists were denied such a privilege. This was strategic by Seretse because it showed the world that Botswana's hands were clean. In the process, the country received more sympathy and goodwill internationally.
Today international journalists and political commentators perceived as unfriendly to the state are singled out and blacklisted. In the process the image of the country is soiled further. DK should have advised his Cabinet colleagues on Seretse's approach in this regard.

In 1988, Masire's government backed down when it met serious resistance in its otherwise good project of dredging the Boro River for purposes of providing water to areas which needed it desperately. The people of Ngamiland and international environment groups objected and Masire listened. Those who held different opinions from that of government were not portrayed as unpatriotic and enemies of the state. DK was a Cabinet Minister in Masire's government at the time.

In the early 1990s, Sir Ketumile Masire declared one Church minister of foreign origin a Prohibited Immigrant in Botswana. It took some mild pressure from local and international groups for Masire to reverse the decision. DK was there in Masire's government when this happened.

In the post-Masire era, a number of government decisions which negatively affected the image of the country internationally have been made. A similar scenario to the Boro dredging was that of the removal of the Basarwa from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Those who differed with government on this issue were viewed as unpatriotic and enemies of the state. This took place right in the influential DK's presence in the government but he does not seem to have advised government otherwise as a result of his experience in Masire's government. In his autobiography Very Brave Or Very Foolish (2006), Sir Ketumile writes that private media journalists in Botswana used to write false and alarming stories about some personalities in his government but he decided not to punish such journalists. DK was part of the government and definitely one of the people who felt wronged.  In the post-Masire era, private media practitioners complain a lot about intolerance and deliberate marginalisation by the seemingly vindictive government in terms advertisements.

The post-Masire government has declared a few foreigners Prohibited Immigrants and this has put the country on the international spot light and affected its image quite negatively. Although DK was there, it does not seem he used his influence and experience in Masire's administration to advise the decision makers otherwise. 

I hope I won't be misconstrued to be saying that Seretse and Masire's governments were not without blemish. After all, the two gentlemen were also human and politicians. Just like politicians everywhere, they also made blunders and mistakes sometimes in a bid to further personal interests over national interests. However, DK could have done the current crop of BDP leadership a great favour by advising them to borrow leaves from Seretse and Masire's books in taking some decisions which ultimately had serious consequences for Botswana internationally.

It is hoped that the movie based on Alexander McCall Smith's novels will help restore the international image of the country. But shouldn't DK have advised government on the importance of maintaining a sparkling international image which Seretse and Masire gave priority to?

In conclusion, I argue that fierce factionalism, intolerance and vindictiveness in the BDP of the post-Masire era have led to a culture of mistrust and paranoia by those in power and government.  As a result, the government sees enemies everywhere and in everything, hence the Security and Intelligence Bill. A group of BDP members who joined the party in the late 1980s and early 1990s were promising reformers and modernists but they surrendered to politics of intolerance, exclusion and marginalisation in response to the treatment they received from the party veterans who acted as gatekeepers in the BDP's Central Committee.

The culture of intolerance and humiliation of opponents spilled over from the party into government and this is how it deals with local and international critics. In my view, DK's legacy is an integral part of the beginning and sustenance of this phenomenon. These are lessons that can come in handy to the next President of the republic.

However, when all is said and done, I salute DK for having seen it fit to call it a day when he was still going strong politically. I understand he also declined nomination as an additional member of the BDP Central Committee. He deserves a slot in the country's political hall of fame. 

The writer is a senior lecturer at UB's History Department