Land is the basis for real independence!

Not only is land a sensitive issue, it is also volatile. Therefore, we must tread carefully when we tackle it head on. We must be strategic. Of-course emotions are part of our human-ness, but we must try by all means to control them when we deal with this issue. This is so, because in the heat of the argument, we may lose our focus if we allow our emotions to get the better of us. Unfortunately, the law will not judge a case on the basis of how much emotions were projected, but on the strength of how the law was interpreted! From this premise, let me throw my six-penny thoughts on the Kgosi Mosadi Seboko’s exposé from a fencesitting position in the hope that both adversaries will find a common ground from which to launch new-beginnings.

Let me hasten once again to reiterate that land is the basis for every nation’s independence and sovereignty. We are sovereign and independent because we can lay claim to a land mass covering some 581, 730 KM2, which territory we have named ‘Botswana’ after the dominant language of its inhabitants.

The same is true for the island of England which covers 243, 610 km2 and is appropriately named England after its inhabitants, the Angles whose language is English. In their destructive campaign of conquest, these Angles managed to anglicize vast territories especially in Africa using the Anglican – better known as the Church of England – all these done under the seal of the British Royalty, after-all the Queen or the King as is the case now, is the Head of the Church of England! Batswana lost their land to the British during the years of the so-called British protection over Bechuanaland – that is Batswana land both south and north of Limpopo River. That is where we lost our land.

We were communal people whose assets were held in community of property under the custodianship of our Kings or Magosi. But the advent of British colonialism following that dreaded Berlin Conference of 1884 disrupted our systems of governance and land tenure and has bequeathed us the ills that we are currently contending with, one of which is the case of the ownership of Forest Hill Farm 9 KO between Bamalete Landboard (Attorney General) and Bamalete tribe.

The timing of Kgosi Seboko’s revelations of how President Mokgweetsi Masisi, allegedly working in cahoots with his Cabinet minister and Member of Parliament for Ramotswa Lefoko Moagi, summoned her to State House, was strategic, I must admit.

At that infamous meeting, Kgosi Seboko avers that she was basically told that the President will give her (tribe) the Farm but she must stand back and allow the court to do its work because the judges of the lower court (High Court) had been ‘mischievous’!

In a word, Seboko is saying that President Masisi (the Executive) interferes with the work of the Judiciary thereby tarnishing the sanctity of that timetested democratic ethos - ‘separation of powers’! However, the Office of the President has refuted these claims as ‘misleading’. Whatever transpires at the courts, my contention is that the question of land will not be settled by the law simply because the land was misappropriated through mischief-making, infact what the colonisers and their proxies did when they disinherited the Natives (Batswana) their land, amounts to criminality!

These people – the British Royalty and their local proxies mostly comprising of (‘captured Magosi’ and a few cattle barons), the Roman Catholic Church as well as the host of absentee landlords who own farms in the proximities of Lobatse, Gantsi, Tuli Block, Tati – got these for a song if anything! These vast tracts of land in the ownership of a few individuals has rendered our independence ‘meaningless’ and belie the opening words of our National Anthem – ‘Fatshe leno la rona’!

It can’t be true because Batswana go for years waiting for Land Boards to allocate them residential plots or Masimo (farming land) in their own country while foreigners and expatriates manage at every given opportunity to acquire, either by hook or crook, prime land on which they build estates and rent these out to Batswana.

Now, if independence means a nation having ownership of its land, it is high time that Batswana stand up for what is rightfully theirs. It’s sad that Batswana have adopted foreign habits and diverted from their culture, traditions and ways of life and in this state of confusion, fail to see why they must stand with their Magosi in reclaiming their land from the colonisers and their local proxies. Indeed, as Franz Fanon has warned us in his epic seminal, ‘White Skin, Black Masks’, these African governments are proxies of their foreign masters! They must be unmasked completely because they have taken us for a ride for the longest time.

Now, what are we to deduce from the infamous State House rendezvous to which Kgosi Mosadi Seboko was summoned? Did the President want to take her into his confidence, perhaps to make her appreciate how insurmountable the question of land ownership is for Natives? Or was it just an act of a man ready to flaunt the extent of his executive powers? These questions are pertinent because Batswana tend to engage in open verbal fights when they talk about their land, but hardly ever question why Game City, Commerce Park, International Finance Park, Gaborone Dam and other parcels of land around the country are owned by the Roman Catholic Church in the Vatican!

We hardly ever raise a finger about the Lobatse Farms, the Gantsi Farms, the Tuli Block, Crown land (Lehatshe la Sehuba) and Tati Concessions, the latter actually being a state within a state, given that it is governed under a distinct legal dispensation! For instance, the Mining Act is devoid of any legal standing over minerals found in Tati.

Batswana hardly ever throw any tantrums when Kgosi Tawana of Batawana demands the return of Moremi Game Reserve to his tribe, neither do they say anything when Kgosikgolo Kgafela II speaks about reclaiming Bakgatla land which they fought for and have Title over- rather they will accuse these Magosi of ill-intent, or disparage them at the worst! No one says anything about Basarwa being disinherited of their land now known as Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR) sans Ditshwanelo when they fight for their right to be buried in their forefathers’ land! We have swayed from our traditions – we used to say, ‘Maropeng go a boelwa’, but where are those Marope? They have been confiscated and given to foreigners. It is time we raised our voices in unison to speak about real independence.

And we thank this current President because he’s been something of a blessing in disguise, a trigger to incite Batswana’s nationalistic spirit! Now that he has triggered that spirit and even suggested a way out, as in the recent amendment to the Tribal Land Act which places tribal land at par with freehold land through the issuance of a title deed – let every Motswana stand up and fight for his right! This we must do Now, or consign ourselves and our posterity to doom!