Lebohang K Moleko
T he report “SA’s Lesotho massacre ‘cover- up'” (March 20) says “silence surrounds a massacre in Lesotho by South African paratroopers, straining relations between the two countries”.
Eighteen months ago, Southern African Development Community (SADC) forces came to Lesotho when three opposition parties, with the assistance of elements of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF), were planning to remove the government by force through a coup d’etat. South Africa and Lesotho have invested heavily in the Highlands Water Project, and that asset is normally secured by the LDF. It became necessary, therefore, to send a detachment there to ensure the security of the dam.
Military interventions are ugly things in which people die; and two South African officers died in the attack. The Mail & Guardian claims LDFsoldiers were killed in their sleep, but it should base its findings on more than “photographs said to be taken by a humanitarian worker soon after”.
The statement that relations between Lesotho and South Africa are strained seems to be based on the fact that members of the royal family are unhappy, and the paper makes reference to Chief Seeiso Seeiso. Chiefs play no role in foreign policy formulation, nor execution, in Lesotho. They are part of the local government structure.
In fact, relations between the two countries could not have been better, as can be seen in the involvement of South Africa in the restructuring of the LDF, as well as in the SADC-driven political intervention.
President Thabo Mbeki’s non-attendance of the royal wedding was explained to the government of Lesotho; and the king was correctly unhappy because the president’s absence meant the absence of his entire Cabinet, with the exception of Mangosuthu Buthelezi. We were also honoured by the presence of Madiba.
“Human rights lawyer” Hae Phoofolo is known in Lesotho as the man who headed the illegal government that followed the palace coup in 1994.
The M&G’s claim that the “royal family” is seen as loosely allied to the democratic opposition is very regrettable. The opposition in Lesotho is not democratic, because it burned the nation’s capital when it had been defeated in the elections of 1998.
The revelations by Seeiso of confidential talks between Nelson Mandela and the queen mother when Mandela invited her to South Africa is a matter of regrettable bad taste, especially as Mandela had invited the queen mother and not Seeiso. As he grows older, he will know better.
Professor Lebohang K Moleko is the ambassador of the Kingdom of Lesotho to the United States