Heroic Send-Off For Koma :: Mmegi Online

Thousands of mourners and Batswana from around the country descended on Mahalapye village to bury former Botswana National Front (BNF) president, Dr Kenneth Koma, on Saturday. The funeral was graced by President Festus Mogae, former president Sir Ketumile Masire and senior opposition figures. For a while the curtain of political hatred was lowered as Botswana's political parties stood in solidarity to bury the late doyen of opposition politics.

Koma's cousin Maipelo Senai narrated how she grew up with him. She said he was a humorous person with no hatred from his early days up to the time he went to school and came back to join politics. "If we are to talk about my cousin, we will spend the whole day, because his good deeds are too many to count," she said.

Opposition veteran Klass Motshidisi said Koma was a man of the people who wanted to liberate masses when he first arrived from studies in 1964. "He was a very strategic person who easily outsmarted the Special Branch at a time when they though he was distributing communist doctrine," he said.

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