CYRIL RAMAPHOSA CAN’T PROTECT IAN KHAMA FOREVER!

Now that the former president’s urgent application to the High Court in which he prayed for the dismissal of the warrant of arrest issued against him by the Magistrate Court has been thrown out, the question is, will the Government of Botswana apply for his extradition?

Many are already positing whether South African president Cyril Ramaphosa will continue to protect Ian Khama or whether he will finally give in and allow diplomatic channels to kick in. Well, there is doubt here. Ramaphosa has consistently shown an unwillingness to cooperate with the Botswana authorities. The first signs started in 2019 when the Department of Justice refused point blank to accede to a request for Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) by Botswana’s Directorate of Public Prosecutions in respect of the P100 billion fraud case.

Secondly, Ramaphosa went on to facilitate Khama’s trip to India to visit Dalai Lama when the Botswana side had withheld the former president such diplomatic privileges. And at long last, when charges were preferred against Khama, Ramaphosa told the Press during a binational commission meeting between South Africa and Botswana that Khama was not a fugitive but was visiting South Africa. It is almost a year since Khama fled to South Africa where he has mounted an unrelenting and uncompromising campaign via South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) against the government of Botswana.

Surprisingly, every time something related to Khama happens, the SABC is the first to rush to give the former president a microphone to state his side of the story, but will not accord the same treatment to the government of Botswana. In the last part of the sequel they were probably reminded by someone that they need to give Botswana the benefit of the doubt, and timidly carried the line, ‘SABC had reached out to Botswana government but they did not respond’ – or something to that effect! What is patently clear is that Ian Khama enjoys political refuge in South Africa. The fact that he has moved all his immediate family members to South Africa is testimony to this assertion. His defence is that he is fleeing from political persecution. He fears for his life! Our former president’s fate reminds me of a time in history when former Ethiopian strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam of the infamous ‘Red Terror’ reign under the Dergue unceremoniously fled his country of birth and sought refuge in Zimbabwe. Mengistu’s case was slightly different in that he had been sentenced to death in absentia. In 1996 a SADC Summit meeting here in Gaborone at the newly-opened Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC) office elected then Zimbabwe’s president, the late Robert Mugabe as the founding Chairman of the SADC Organ on Defense, Politics and Security. At a press conference to announce these developments, I asked Mugabe if his conscience was clear in accepting the chairmanship of the Organ given that he was harbouring Mengistu, a man wanted for crimes against humanity, in Zimbabwe? How could he defend human rights and secure the region’s security and political rights when he was harbouring a fugitive, I asked him. His response, I averred, was the classical description of ‘birds of a feather flock together’!

But the lawyer in him came to his rescue when he answered that Zimbabwe did not have an extradition treaty with Ethiopia, and seeing that Mengistu was fleeing persecution and had sought refuge in his country, he felt duty-bound to grant it! Now as we speak, Mugabe has joined his ancestors in the afterlife, while Mengistu remains in Zimbabwe, most certainly under the watchful eye of the current president, Dambudzo Mnangagwa!So what can we learn from this contrast? In South Africa, Ramaphosa is engaged in a bitter political fight with his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. In fact, the African National Congress’ last conference was chaotic with Zuma’s faction in the ANC wreaking mayhem and causing havoc. Ramaphosa escaped by the skin of his teeth! But, Zuma has remained in Nkandla, his homeland in Kwazulu to fight his legal battles against the government of South Africa. He has not fled to a neighbouring country to cast aspersions on the government of the day! Perhaps this is the lesson that Khama should learn! He must fight his battles here at home. As for Ramaphosa, he must remember that personal relationships cannot sustain diplomatic relations. The party in government in South Africa is the ANC and in Botswana it is the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). If these two political parties don’t share a common history – because there is this common misconception that Botswana did not fight on the side of South Africa’s liberation – they must find a way to work together because now they are the parties in government – they have the levers of state power! They cannot compromise this on the altar of personal egos! We have said this before, but it’s worth reiterating – that Ramaphosa must dismount his high horse and allow legal channels to decide Khama’s fate, as is the case with Zuma’s predicament. If this is not resolved at that level, I am afraid it will disrupt our bilateral relations and jeopardise the regional integration programme as envisaged by SADC! It was Ian Khama’s father, the late Sir Seretse Khama who with the late Tanzania president, Mwalimu Julius Nyere and Zambia’s founding father, Dr Kenneth Kaunda as well as Mozambique’s Samora Machel conceived the idea of a united southern Africa under the banner of Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC). What a sad day it would be if Ian Khama’s fate would engineer political disruptions in SADC and ultimately lead to a disunited region? The seeds are already planted woe is he that fails to act decisively! But when all is said and done, the DPP will have to apply for Khama’s extradition – whether this will pass or fail in the South African courts remains to be seen. In the meantime, reports that Khama intends to take over the presidency of his political party – Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) will be curtailed by the BDP leveraging the recommendations of the Constitutional Review.

This means that President Mokgweetsi Masisi will have to fast-track his perusal of the report of the Constitutional Review Commission – pass to the Minister for Presidential Affairs to table in Parliament and use the party’s majority to pass a new Constitution. This new Constitution will have a Clause that unambiguously states that a former president cannot run for political office. In that way you will have done away with the Lula da Silvas, the Benjamin Netenyahus and the prospects of a Donald Trump making a comeback!

Only time will tell!