Addressing Bagammangwato on Saturday, Khama said he stayed in exile for three years with his parents, who were sent away by colonial authorities shortly after his birth in the United Kingdom. “It's just like when I was born. I was born in England because my parents were in exile for six years because the apartheid government and the British didn't agree a black man could be married to a white woman. That is why I was born in England and was in exile for three years. I never thought one day I would have to be in exile as a Motswana under a Batswana-run government. They behaved like the apartheid government and forced me out,” he said. Khama said he is back and doesn't care if he continues being persecuted, but won't be moved to leave the country anymore. Khama said he was forced out amongst others through the P100 billion Butterfly case which he said was a fabrication targeted at him. He also said there were attempts to poison him. He said when he was supposed to go to the Directorate on Intelligence and Security (DIS) for them to check if his guns were properly licensed, he was warned that they would do something to him if he went there.
“They were angry that they couldn't do anything to me before as I left the country with them unawares. They then arrested my twin brothers Tshekedi and Anthony and Tshekedi’s wife, Thea. I was also warned that with the pending charges and arrest warrants, they were waiting for me with handcuffs, ready to embarrass me in front of the media like they did with Isaac Kgosi. I then spoke to my lawyers and made sure I would enter in a way they wouldn't notice. I crossed the border using my passport and I made my way to court without them noticing. They were waiting to see what I would do next, only for them to hear that I had crossed back to South Africa,” he said. Khama assured Bagammangwato that he wasn't only back to attend the court case. He said he came back home and faced his battles whilst home. “It doesn't mean they are no longer making attempts on me. They can do what they like. I know they have prepared other charges in case the gun case fails. There are some people here who I depend on to take care of me. I will see how I eat, where I eat, and what I drink. That is what life has become,” he said.
In June 1947, whilst in London, Seretse first met Ruth Williams, who was then pursuing a career in the financial sector. Their interracial marriage in September 1948 ultimately threw the British Empire into turmoil. The proclamation of a black chief with a white wife, in a territory strategically located between South Africa and the Rhodesias, caused an outcry amongst white settler politicians. South Africa had come under the control of white Afrikaner nationalists in 1948. The then Labour Party government in Britain was desperate to secure its economic as well as political ties with the new apartheid regime. It therefore quietly agreed to bar Seretse Khama from chieftainship. A judicial inquiry was set up to try to prove Seretse's unfitness to rule. But instead, it concluded that Seretse was eminently fit to rule. The Commission’s report was therefore suppressed by the British government, while Seretse and his wife were exiled to England. The persecution of Seretse and Ruth Khama received extensive international press coverage and outrage was expressed by a wide range of people around the world.
Eventually, in 1956, the British finally allowed Seretse and Ruth to return to Botswana as private citizens. What the London authorities hadn't expected was the political acclaim that six years of exile had given him back home, where Seretse Khama was hailed as a nationalist hero. Seretse’s treatment at the hands of the British government made him very popular, helping propel forward the formation and growth of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and his successful presidential campaign in 1965.
