We beg your pardon Mr President!

As we understand it, this is the first fruit of the ice-breaking meeting between the Leader of the Opposition Botsalo Ntuane and President Khama last week. In Ntuane's words, the meeting was full of promise for the future of the country.

A singularly important achievement of the meeting was the olive branch of pardon Khama extended to civil servants whose unions mounted a crippling strike last winter. These are unusually glad tidings because over the past few months, we have failed to reconcile how the President saw fit to pardon felons imprisoned for armed robbery, burglary and manslaughter but could not find it in his heart to tolerate civil servants whose sin was to take part in a struggle for a living wage and improved working conditions.