WORST EXPERIENCE

BPF security personnel throw reporter out of party meeting

Visiting Serowe is always a good experience for EDWARD BULE of The Midweek Sun because he taught at Jwaneng Hill School back in the 90s, he always meets some of his former students who often shower him with love. However, his stay in Serowe this past weekend while covering a BPF leadership meeting, was a nightmare thanks to the political hooliganism he experienced at the hands of the party security personnel. He recounts his experience.

Ihave been in the media since 2009 as a reporter and in my execution of duty, I have never come across what I experienced on Saturday when I was intimidated by a pair of excitable, irrational and overzealous security guards whose working brief, it would appear, was the use of violence even at the slightest provocation.

This happened at the occasion of a Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) leadership meeting at the Ramakolo ward in Serowe. The incident will certainly go down as the scariest experience of my life. The security guards had been engaged by the BPF to provide security services at the party’s meeting at a hall in Serowe. Arriving from Francistown where I am stationed, I was uncertain about the venue for the BPF meeting to be addressed by party president Mephato Reatile. To my relief, I saw some three resplendent ladies dressed in the gold colours of the BPF who would eventually lead me to the venue along with one Mr Moitoi, a veteran of the BPF.

Dozens of politicians were gathered outside the hall chitchatting at the expense of their factional competitors in the party. Seated in their cars or verandas or even walking around talking in whispers, the BPF politicians discussed their positions on the divisive political matters at hand, especially the future of the party in the Umbrella for Democratic Party (UDC) coalition. Opinion was divided between those who want out of the UDC and those who wanted the party to stay. In a lot of cases, both Duma Boko, the leader of the UDC who doubles as president of the Botswana National Front (BNF), was accused of being a condescending dictator who has an inexplicable disdain for consultation.

The Botswana People’s Party (BPP) president, Motlatsi Molapisi was accused of demanding more than what his party deserves in terms of wards and constituencies. Both Boko and Molapisi were given a fair share of the blame before the official session started in earnest inside the hall. Those who wanted the BPF to remain in the UDC threatened that should the party leave the UDC, they will return to their erstwhile party, the Botswana Democratic Party. They reasoned that it would be a suicidal move because the elections are just around the corner, which leaves little time to go into any meaningful negotiations for cooperation with alternative parties. One of the biggest challenges was the fact that the media was not allowed to enter the hall where the meeting happened. At the beginning of the meeting, the gatekeepers were very amenable. They were party activists hence avoided controversy as much as possible. When the party Secretary General, Lawrence Ookeditse arrived at the hall, I requested entry but he did not approve. His fear, he said, was that the evidently volatile atmosphere occasioned by divisions within the collective, could escalate into violent confrontation between the two ‘’factions” leading to an ugly scene. Not satisfied by that position, I kept on requesting for access into the hall but in vain. At that point, the door was manned by party activists. This was before the arrival of the trigger-happy security guards who would later make me regret being in Serowe that day. My persistence to enter the hall seemed destined to succeed when I was told that the party was considering my request with the secretary general still consulting his colleagues at the top table.

Naturally, the message gave me hope that I would eventually be granted entry into the hall. The noise outside the hall where we sat made by annoyed party members who were also not allowed into the hall was deafening. Rain also made it impossible to follow the speeches of the party officials inside. Nor was it easy to hear Ian Khama’s online speech or even those of the officials and anybody else. At some point, the party members who had been manning the door were replaced by the four or so security guards. It later became clear that I would not succeed in my request to enter the hall. I had almost given up when the door was opened by the guards themselves to shield us from the rather persistent rain showers. The guards did not say who could enter the hall or who could not but made a hand gesture for the people to enter the hall. When we finally entered the hall, most of the leaders in the schedule of speakers including the BPF president, Reatile, had already spoken. Khama was on the floor addressing the party members virtually and now that I was inside the hall, I followed every speaker to his or her seat as soon as they finished their comment to get their contacts in case there would be a need to follow up on anything they said. It was not long before two muscular and intimidating security guards were all over me and barking a series of commands as if they had caught a criminal who had been on the loose. I was hurriedly commandeered outside the hall and pushed towards the compound’s gate amidst a flurry of curious questions and accusations by the security guards.

The four or so pages with my notes were pulled out of the note book I carried as I was being pushed violently out through the gate! Earlier on before this drama, I had learned that when a non-delegate party member had tried to enter at the start of the meeting, the security guards had beaten them up. I was equally manhandled and molested by the security guards, making sure I was out of the meeting premises and leaving me to fend for myself in search for what transpired at the meeting. It was only through a press conference addressed post the meeting that I was abled to finally piece things together. The BPF had decided to essentially pull out of the UDC project and contest the elections later this year with their party symbol and under the BPF clock symbol. The party expressed discontent with a number of things within the UDC and preferred they would only enter into a pact arrangement with the Boko-led coalition.