The Kangaroo Court at Oodi

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Monday November 1, 2010 00:00

Kgafela, his brother and the deputy chief of Bakgatla Bana Sekai, supported the floggings and even stated publicly that they had the power to administer punishment or delegate such to mephato. The men have to face the music now. There is no doubt that there are many others who are known to have perpetrated similar offences but have not been arrested. All these people claim to have been sent by the King.

In all the cases, the victims were not afforded a hearing, but were usually whipped in the places where they were found or taken to some secluded spot. Something close to that nearly happened at a funeral in Oodi recently.

We all left the homestead and walked to the graveyard, which is within walking distance from the bereaved's house. People chatted easily, some even laughed as they either reminisced about some event in the past, or as someone joked about something. They were all wearing the expected type of attire for a funeral: Women in simple dresses and skirts, mostly long, and tight headscarves and shawls over their shoulders; the men in trousers and jackets, some in sweaters or dustcoats.

A short scrawny man with unkempt hair stood at the entrance to the graveyard and ordered everyone to keep quite: 'Tidimalo mo mabitleng. Tidimalo,' he ordered, repeating the words over and over like one learning the lyrics to some difficult song.

But some people, ostensibly not conversant with the Setswana language, continued chatting and only stopped when a young man barked at them in English that they had heard the short man at the gate. Just then, a man in an agbada, the type of clothing widely used in West Africa, was almost yanked from his feet by the scrawny man at the gate. 'Mokgatla, go aparwa baki fa o tla lesong! [You must wear a jacket when you come to a funeral!].' The man in the agbada stood rooted to the spot where he had been pulled, utterly perplexed. It was obvious that he did not understand what the scrawny announcer with unkempt hair wanted of him.

'That poor guy is from Benin. He does not understand a word of Setswana,' said a Zambian who happened to be walking next to me. But this flew over the head of the short fellow at the gate. He had the man wait until almost everyone had passed, then dismissed him with a wave of the hand.

After the burial, we all trudged back to the homestead where all the men gathered in a kgotla formation whole the women went into the compound. The man from Benin was conspicuously absent in his orange and black agbada. As peole took their places at the kgotla, others on chairs and others squatting, someone hollered: 'Borra, gatang direthe. Fa le gana, moretlwa o teng! [Gentlemen, will you please squat. If you don't, the rod is available!).'

Curiously, no one had said they would not squat. An announcement to the effect that one of the 'boys' had misbehaved at the graveyard followed: 'Bagaetsho, bangwe ba bana ba lona ba tlhokile maitseo ko mabitleng. [Some of your children failed to behave properly at the graveyard.] Ke batla mosimane yo go tweng o tlhokile maitseo a tle a itlhalose. Madibelankwe emang sentle. [I want the boy who misbehaved to come forward to explain himself. Madibelankwe (a regiment) be ready],' said one of the men, apparently a cousin of the deceased. 

Someone called for sticks to be brought from the Kgotla enclosure made of logs. The 'boy' was not at the kgotla but someone was sent to bring him from the house. He turned out to be a man well into his 50s. Madibelankwe turned out to be young enough to be the man's children.

But the man's accuser would not come forward to state his case, claiming he was afraid of the 'boy'. With the accuser refusing to state his case, the short, scrawny man who had been barking instructions of silence at the gate to the graveyard stood up and said the accused had said 'Fuck off' to the man who would not come forward.

'Why did you say that to him. Explain!' barked the convener of the 'hearing'. The 'boy' stood up: 'This is not the way to conduct a hearing, if that is what you believe you are doing,' he said. 'The complainant is not here and I am not obligated to respond. But I will respond nonetheless. That person is my age. We grew up together and it is not the first time I have spoken to him or he to me in that fashion. I see nothing wrong with it.'

At the centre of the issue was the jacket that the accused was wearing - a safari jacket. According to the 'boy', the absent complainant had approached him and told him to go back home because he was not wearing a jacket, apparently meaning an ordinary suit jacket, and he had told him to 'fuck-off'.

'Borangwane, kgang ke eo,' said the convenor to other men who sat closer to him. No one moved. Or said a word. Young men who had been standing by with water for the mourners to wash their hands got to work. They then served the mourners with food. The matter was thus sealed. Dead and buried!

But such kangaroo courts are quite common in Botswana. 'Believe me, had anyone touched me, I would have pulled out my hunting rifle and fired on whoever had dared assault me.

I am dressed properly. Look at that guy wearing a sweater and the one in the dustcoat. Are those better dressed than me?' the man would later say to a group of other men who had gathered around him in sympathy. And he did have a rifle in his car.