OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maseru | Friday 11.30PM.
THE commander of the Lesotho Defence Force, Lieutenant-General Makhula Mosakheng, announced his resignation with immediate effect on Friday night.
Mosakheng said on Radio Lesotho that Brigadier-Commander Thibeli had taken over the running of the army. Mosakheng also announced that 26 senior officers had been dismissed “in the public interest”.
South African Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Marco Boni said the SA high commissioner in Lesotho was in touch with all senior officials, and was trying to get a clear picture of the situation.
9.30PM:
IN what appears to be a mutiny of junior officers on Friday evening, several pro-government Lesotho Defence Force officers, including the commander, Lieutenant-General Makhula Mosakheng, have been arrested and taken to a maximum security jail in the capital, Maseru.
It is also reported, although unconfirmed, that Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili is under house arrest and that the Foreign Minister, Tom Thabane, has been arrested and jailed. Deputy Prime Minister Kelebone Maope told reporters “something like” a coup was taking place.
Sources within the defence force have said that some army officers accused of not being loyal to the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy had been threatened for weeks with dismissal for not following “their job description”.
Mosakheng apparently called a meeting of army officers on Thursday and told them that a fellow officer, Colonel Malitsame Motene, would be fired by an extraordinary notice in the Government Gazette. Defence sources said they suspect Motene displeased the government when he ordered a group of soldiers, allegedly sent to disperse protesters outside the palace gates by force about two weeks ago, to return to their barracks.
The demonstrators have been camping outside the king’s palace since early August in protest against the alleged rigging of Lesotho’s May 23 general election.
Mosakheng allegedly threatened that other officers will be sacked.
Government sources said that the permanent secretary of the defence ministry — Ncholu Ncholu — was also dismissed on Friday for apparently sympathising with the opposition Basutoland Congress Party. Ncholu confirmed he was no longer permanent secretary.
However a statement on Radio Lesotho by the Lesotho Defence Force said there was no cause for concern, that what is under way is an internal clean-up of the LDF in which certain officers “in a corrupt alliance with the government” were being booted out.
The trouble has erupted as government and opposition leaders were preparing to leave to the Southern African Development Conference in Mauritius, where the result of the Langa commission of inquiry in to electoral fraud is to be announced.