The LDF maintain that they were merely doing their job to confiscate some weapons from the police who were planning to distribute them to the radical youth of the ruling party in order to disrupt a peaceful march planned for the following morning, aimed at pressuring the Prime Minister to re-open parliament which he had prorogued in June after consultation with the King.
Other observers differ with this view and suggest that the LDF were acting on the orders of their beleaguered commander Lt. Gen. Kennedy Tlali Kamoli who had been dismissed from duty the previous evening by publication of the Government Gazette Legal Notice Number 64, which simultaneously announced the promotion of Brig. Gen. Maaparankoe Mahao to the rank of Lt. Gen., simultaneously appointing him the new commander of the LDF. In the ensuing turmoil of that fateful morning, the LDF are accused of having attempted to assassinate Lt. Gen. Mahao and to abduct the Prime Minister. The latter were earlier whisked away to safety in South Africa on a tip off that the LDF was looking for them. It is based on this that Lesotho’s Prime Minister the Right Honourable Thomas Thabane maintains that there was a coup attempt. Supporting this position, Prof. Francis Makoa of the National University of Lesotho is quoted as having said that whether it was by design or by accident the LDF’s actions on that Saturday morning bore all the hallmarks of a coup.
