The Law Society of Botswana is to deliver a petition to President Ian Khama asking him to give an unequivocal assurance that he does not support torture and extra-judicial killings, by bringing to court the military intelligence officers who allegedly executed a suspect in May.
The society said that although inquests were once routinely held in Botswana when civilians were killed, this had not happened in the case of nine of the 13 deaths by gunshot in the country since April last year.
Â
Dumelang Saleshando, Botswana Congress Party spokesperson and MPÂ for Gaborone Central, said Botswana has had an average of “one state-sponsored killing a month since April 2008. This coincides with the assumption of office of President Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama and the opening of the office of the Directorate of Intelligence Services [DIS].”
John Kalafatis, apparently wanted by the authorities in connection with a burglary, was shot from behind while drinking in the back seat of a stationary car in Gaborone on May 13.
Botswana media claim to have seen a letter, dated March 4, in which Kalafatis told his lawyer, Busang Manewe, that his life was in danger.
Kalafatis’s younger brother, Costa, has been quoted as saying that security agents confronted him on the day of the killing and told him they were going to kill his brother on that day.
Tebeogo Moipolai, executive secretary of the law society, said: “The killing… showed a definite intention to kill an unarmed civilian who posed no threat to security agents.”
The association said that the impression that the government is protecting security force killers has been given credence by government statements, including one by Vice-President Mompati Merafthe, which appeared to justify the killing of unarmed civilians because “they continually harass us”.
Moipolai maintained that the killings have caused immense fear in the nation and “indicate a dangerous slide down towards anarchy”.
“The key problem is that we do not have a credible investigating body,” Saleshando said. “The perpetrators, being state security agents, become the investigators … They are effectively investigating themselves.”
He complained that, because police never report on their findings, it is impossible to establish the truth. “In the United Kingdom an independent body is established, usually headed by a former judge, and the investigators’ findings are made public.”
Dick Bayford, lawyer for the Kalafatis family, said that for the first time the family of a security force victim was able to muster the moral resolve to challenge the actions of the state and demand answers.
“Before, it would appear that the families of other victims were simply resigned to their fate, perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps out of fear that they would be contending with an all-powerful state,” Bayford said. “The killing of John Kalafatis was carried out in a spineless, chilling and callous manner.”
Bayford alleged that another victim, Zimbabwean Edison Mark Gumbo, who was a legal resident in Botswana, was also shot from behind by security force members. Â
In the letter to his lawyer Kalafatis wrote that he was wanted in connection with a house burglary in Phakalane on Christmas day last year and that he was the target of security force agents.
“They said I should be shot on sight. Now imagine what they can do to me if they can get their hands on me. So, I would like you to represent me so that there will be a handing over and that I should not be tortured, as that is their intention,” Kalafatis wrote in his letter.
Kalafatis wrote that the DIS and the police suspected him of committing the offence. They had raided his home and told his brother they wanted him in connection with the alleged offence.
His friend Tshepo Mosala had also been arrested in connection with the case, he wrote.