Thou shall not insult the president

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Friday February 26, 2010 00:00

[When] people said 'This fellow has nothing to say except sing for Kenyatta,' I said I did not have ideas of my own. Who was I to have my own ideas? I was in Kenyatta's shoes and therefore I had to sing whatever Kenyatta wanted.

If I had sung another song, do you think Kenyatta would have left me alone? Therefore you ought to sing the song I sing. If I put a full stop, you should put a full stop. This is how the country will move forward. The day you become a big person, you will have the liberty to sing your own song and everybody will sing it'. - Former Kenyan president, Daniel Arap Moi.

'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' -- Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

'Thou shall not insult the president of the republic, neither shall you ridicule the national flag, coat of arms or national anthem. For on the day you do so, you shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You shall be deported if you are an alien.' This could easily be a clause in the laws of Botswana, considering how issues around these 'elevated' public symbols have been handled in the last 22 months. During that time 13 people, according to Defense, Justice and Security Minister, Ramadeluka Seretse, have been charged for insulting or showing disrespect to President Ian Khama.

So far three of the people accused of insulting the president during that time have been declared persona non grata. A quick look at some of these 13 people:

* Indian national Uunikrisham Bhaskaran was accused of telling his employee to  'go and ask for permission to go to the toilet from Khama'.

* South African Hendrick Gerber, a senior manager at Tati Nickel was charged with uttering the words, ' I don't care even if it is the f**king president of the country coming.'

* Riaan van de Watt, a white South African national was accused of telling his employee that: 'I cannot tolerate you because you are stupid like your President who is a mixture of black and white.'

* Another South African Dorsey Dube was arrested and detained for a day while on her way back home, for saying that 'Khama looks like a Bushman'. She was freed reportedly after South African authorities intervened on her behalf.

* Sayed Fakhan Abbs, a manager with Jamal was arraigned before court and later deported for uttering the words, ' I don't f**k ladies just like your president Khama does not have a wife'.

They were all charged under Section 91 of the constitution which says that: any person who does any act or utters any words or publishes any writing with intent to insult or to bring into contempt or ridicule- (a) the Arms or Ensigns Armorial of Botswana; (b) the National Flag of Botswana; (c) the Standard of the President of Botswana; (d) the National Anthem of Botswana, is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding P500.

Like in many countries around the world this law was enacted with the basic premise, that it is wrong to criticise the leadership - an act that can be interpreted as sedition. Ours is a law borrowed from a crueller version - the English Common Law. Under English common law, a statement is seditious if it 'brings into hatred or contempt' the Queen or her heirs, or the government and constitution, or either House of Parliament, or the administration of justice, or if it incites people to attempt to change any matter of Church or State established by law (except by lawful means), or if it promotes discontent among or hostility between British subjects. It is punishable with life imprisonment.

Similar laws have been applied in many African countries, from Swaziland to Rwanda to Libya. In Zimbabwe 33 year old Happison Mabika, and Patience Takaona, 29, went into hiding after being accused of = singing songs 'too sensitive and insulting' President Robert Mugabe; A Rwandan university lecturer was arrested and charged after some of his students claimed he had insulted the president.

The lecturer was accused of telling his second year students that they were more educated than president Paul Kagame and that the president was an undisciplined student in school. The student who reported the matter said in an interview later, with Radio Rwanda that she was 'angry and concerned seeing him insulting the head of state'; In Ivory Coast, three journalists were sentenced to two-year prison terms for 'insulting' the president in articles suggesting that his presence had brought bad luck to the national soccer team.

Scores of journalists in Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, and Congo have been arrested and incarcerated for insulting the president.

The arrests and subsequent arraignment in court of suspects under Botswana laws is nothing out of the ordinary, at least looking at the world picture.

The curious thing however is that Khama's predecessors did not have as many cases under their belt. What is it about Khama that makes people so passionate about him? On the one hand, you have people who simply don't like the man and can even tell their workers to go ask for 'permission to go to the toilet' from him. On the other hand you have those who love him and would cry for joy at the mention of his name. It is the latter who will, without hesitation, report the former for 'insulting' the president.

You then have the police who are all too happy to charge those reported to have insulted the president. Two or three witnesses should help convict. It is the word of the one reporting and his or her witnesses against the accused. As the cases go before the courts and more and more foreigners are accused we begin to see more cases being reported. Botswana may find itself having overtaken all countries in terms of cases against people who were charged with 'insulting the president'.

Yes, it is true that some of the accused persons had indeed insulted the president. However we may never know as most or all of them were deported before the courts could make a ruling. How objective are the police when it comes to looking at the cases when they are reported and when they charge people?

Can theirs be seen as ingratiating themselves to the president and the government? How will they treat requests for action such as demonstrations that seek to condemn decisions taken by the president and his government? That question also encapsulates the question about whether the police would be non-partisan enough.

Democracy is about guaranteeing people's freedoms: freedom of expression and opinion, freedom to say the government is going at it the wrong way, freedom to know the truth etc. How well protected is our democracy in light of Section 91 of the constitution, especially with regard to the president? Progressive governments, their people and institutions look askance at those governments that still maintain insult laws.

In countries where the laws are rigidly and relentlessly applied, the president becomes a super being. A saint whose actions are always justified. It was in realising just how destructive to democracy insult laws are that prestigious world courts - the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter American Court of Human Rights have made rulings that insist that public figures need to be afforded less, not more, protection from defamation than ordinary citizens, if there is to be the free and vigorous debate that is needed in a democracy.

This they argue is because public figures are servants of the people and not masters. Batswana of old understood this tenet: 'Kgosi thothobolo e olela matlakala' [the chief, like the dumpsite should be prepared to receive all types of rubbish].

That includes rubbish said by people about him. The Inter-American Court in the case of Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky that eventually led to the revocation of that country's desacato or insult law, had this to say: 'The use of desacato laws to protect the honor of public functionaries acting in their official capacities' gives them protection 'that is not available to other members of society. This distinction inverts the fundamental principle in a democratic system that holds the government subject to controls.'

Such laws, the court said, serve to silence 'society as a whole.'

The people live in fear of the president and he is elevated to a demigod status. The government's intelligence personnel enrol with universities, use public kombis, join hospitals as nurses and doctors and infiltrate newsrooms just to be there to get those who insult the president. The country is enveloped in a repressive cloud of fear.

Will Botswana citizens, at any point, need to be careful with their gestures and ensure there is no pun or ambiguity in their speech, lest they find themselves in jail or deported if they are foreigners? When that day comes journalists and opinion leaders will be jailed for criticizing  or cartooning the president, and public debate will die. And so will democracy. All will sing the president's song, and hope to one-day be president themselves.

Puppetry will become more commonplace than it is today. All moral semblance will be lost, and the country will be plunged into chaos (God forbid!). That will be a sad day for a country that has always been seen as a model of democracy for Africa- a guardian of democracy in the continent.  Always the first to condemn anti-democratic stunts by African governments, Botswana's democratic credentials have never been doubted. Indeed there have been 'a few leaks in the house' that could be fixed. Those leaks appear to be growing into heinous holes through which darkness filters into the house.

The house needs repair. The country is going down a slope and getting back on the incline will require much vigilance, determination and absolute love for the country - not selfishness, not the type of puppetry that Moi wanted his people to show. Our people, as any people elsewhere want true freedom as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human rights.