If you don’t have something nice to say about the president of Botswana, it’s best not to say anything at all, reports Sello Motseta
In September Hendrick Geber, a senior manager of the Tati Nickel Mining Company in Matsiloje, had a heated argument with a colleague. In it, he is alleged to have blurted out: “I don’t care even if it’s the fucking president of the country coming.”
Last week Geber, a South African national, was escorted from his office by members of the newly established Directorate of Intelligence Services and deported from the country. The charge: insulting President Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama.
Gerber’s case follows on the heels of the arrest of Dorsey Dube, a South African who was detained at the Botswana border in November for allegedly saying Khama “looks like a Bushman”.
Local police defended the use of punitive sanctions against individuals accused of insulting their president, saying it’s all in accordance with the laws of the country.
“The inference was that in [Dube’s] contemptuous attitude, she insinuated that Basarwa were inferior and that the president of the Republic of Botswana was also inferior or of lesser race or class,” said police spokesperson Chris Brian Mbulawa, after widespread public condemnation of Dube’s arrest from NGOs and human rights activists.
Under Section 91 of the Penal Code Cap 08:01, any person involved in any act, uttering any words or publishing any writing with intent to insult or bring into contempt or ridicule either the arms or ensigns armorial of Botswana, the national flag, the “standard” of the president or the country’s national anthem can be prosecuted.
“The incarceration was meant to demonstrate our disapproval of the contemptuous attitude towards Basarwa,” said Mbulawa. He insisted that the “Bushman tribe” should be referred to as “Basarwa” or “the San” not “Bushman”, which he said Dube used in a derogatory manner. Mbulawa maintained that there was no pressure to encourage state security agents to take such actions.
But Peter Tshukudu, spokesÂperson for human rights body Ditshwanelo, said if Dube had compared the president with a member of another ethnic group, such as Bakgatla and Bamangwato, the whole debacle would not have generated as much attention.
“It is the way people have been socialised. Basarwa are perceived to be inferior,” said Tshukudu.
Government critics said the incident reflects deeply entrenched prejudices.
“It’s doubly tragic when you consider that President Khama’s father, the country’s first president, himself endured a great deal of racist abuse from the colonial authorities for marrying a British woman and that he promised the country’s Bushmen that their rights would always be protected,” said Survival International’s director Stephen Corry.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa-Botswana (Misa-Botswana) also expressed reservations on the country’s punitive insult laws and asked legislators for their repeal.
“These laws are not necessary because we have other laws which deal with issues of improper behaviour. There is no need to have a specific one protecting the president because it is open to abuse,” said Thapelo Ndlovu, Misa-Botswana’s national director. “It depends too much on an individual’s interpretation of what an insult is.”
The Gerber and Dube incidents follow a string of similar cases that have taken place during the tenure of Khama.
“It is very easy to claim that somebody insulted the president,” said Tawana Moremi, the Maun West Member of Parliament. “It is one person’s word against another. Employees can — trump up charges claiming their employer is insulting the president.
“How are supervisors going to control their staff if it is so easy to kick them out of the country?”
The declaration, which was made under a presidential decree, cannot be challenged in court and has been used to deport foreign critics of the government in the past.
Recently an Indian businessman was declared an “undesirable person” for allegedly insulting Khama about his sexuality. Sayed Fakhar Abbas Shah was arrested on October6 and charged with “use of insulting language to the President”.
Media reports allege he stated: “I do not fuck ladies just like your President Khama who does not have a wife.” Prosecutors said the statement inferred that Khama – who is 56 and has never married – “is of a different sexual orientation than the conventional”.
The case was withdrawn from court and Shah was declared “an undesirable inhabitant of/or visitor to Botswana” and deported during the election period.
In early November Maun magistrate Clifford Foroma barred media and members of the public from hearing a high-profile case in which a camp manager from Moremi Crossing, Riaan van der Watt, was accused of insulting Khama.
Van der Watt allegedly told an employee: “I cannot tolerate you as you are just stupid like your president who is a mixture of black and white.”
In 2005 the laws were employed by former president Festus Mogae to deport an Australian professor, Kenneth Good, who had lived in Botswana for 15 years.
Good and human right activists associated his expulsion with his co-authoring of a critical report titled “Presidential Succession in Botswana: No Model for Africa”.