Despite fearing for his life in his home country, Botswana’s former president Ian Khama has returned home from exile to help his Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) party campaign ahead of elections at the end of next month.
The elections promise to be the most closely run since those held after independence in 1966. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) of incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi, a bitter rival of Khama’s, faces a a generally strengthened opposition in the Umbrella for Democratic Change coalition, led by Duma Boko of the Botswana National Front.
Masisi’s record has been mixed, with youth unemployment among the diamond-rich country’s 2.7-million population at high levels and public infrastructure in a woeful state.
In an interview with the Sunday Times before he returned to Botswana, Khama, the second child of Seretse Khama, Botswana’s foremost independence leader and its president from 1966 to 1980, said he believed his life was in danger there but he was determined “to fight for democracy”.
Khama, who held office from 2008 until 2018, has been living in South Africa since 2021 after falling out with Masisi, who was his former deputy president in the BDP and the government.
“I know they are plotting to kill me once I return to Botswana and they will use the trumped up charges to get me in jail and then something will happen, either natural causes or a sharp object will be used, and prisoners will be blamed for it,” he said.
I know they are plotting to kill me once I return to Botswana and they will use the trumped up charges to get me in jail and then something will happen
Khama appeared in court in Gaborone on Friday to face charges of illegally owning a gun and receiving stolen property. He was ordered to return to court on September 23.
“Three out of the five individuals I was charged with, including the former police commissioner [Keabetswe Makgope], have been acquitted,” Khama told the Sunday Times. He said the judge in the case had condemned the way it had been handled by the Directorate of Intelligence & Security (DIS), led by the country’s spy chief Brig Peter Magosi.
Khama said Masisi and Magosi were behind his “persecution”.
“Masisi hired Magosi, whom I had fired in the military for misappropriation of funds. But then he made Magosi the de facto commander of all law enforcement agencies, which is why in just five years Masisi has had four different directors of the DCEC, because they all clashed with Magosi. And Magosi has continued to harass and intimidate me and my family members because they don’t want Masisi to be challenged in the elections.”
Khama accused Magosi of having tried to link him to various financial crimes. When that failed, the illegal firearms charges were brought.
“I mean, as the president of the country, it was DIS people who were in charge of renewing my firearms licences and police issued affidavits that the weapons were licensed, but they still went ahead with the charge. They had thought that by arresting the police commissioner [Makgope] he would implicate me; and now the charges have been dropped because they can’t find anything,” said Khama.
The Directorate of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges of aiding and abetting unlawful possession of firearms against Makgope in June.
Media reports in Botswana earlier this year said Masisi had instructed Magosi to take forced leave due to perceptions that the DIS’s performance was deteriorating.
But the DIS issued a denial. “The allegations and claims contained in the story are not only conjecture but are false and clearly calculated to circulate alarming misinformation which places the DIS in yet another controversy,” said DIS spokesperson Edward Robert.
Khama told the Sunday Times several attempts had been made to resolve the differences between himself and Masisi but all had failed. The latest initiative was an invitation by Angolan President João Lourenço, chair of Sadc, for the two of them to meet in Luanda, but nothing had come of this.
“There are many attempts even by elders and former Nigerian president Gen [Olusegun] Obasanjo, but nothing. Masisi came to Luanda, because we were both invited, but he left without coming to the meeting, wasting government money,” said Khama.
Some of the differences between Masisi and Khama include the trophy hunting ban introduced by Khama in 2014 and revoked by Masisi five years later. Nor did they see eye-to-eye over the government’s partnership with De Beers — Masisi has demanded that Botswana should get a bigger slice of the profits from the diamond industry.
Khama said that so far he had relied on technology to assist the BPF remotely ahead of the elections, but he needed to be on the ground to talk to voters directly.
Referring to the controversy over the hunting ban, he said that in the 10 years that he was president, only two rhinos were killed by poachers, but in the past five years the number had soared.
“That is exactly what happens when you just lift a hunting ban. We are a wildlife-based tourism country and now there are question marks about the future of Botswana tourism because we have a regime that has reversed the gains of our founding fathers.
“Masisi behaves like Donald Trump,” said Khama.
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