‘I am not a fugitive,’ says former Botswana president Ian Khama

Former Botswana president Ian Khama says SA should have done more to defuse  the tension between himself and his handpicked successor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi.

Khama, who is in SA, blames his successor for the legal troubles he is facing in his home country. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Khama said Southern African regional leaders, including Ramaphosa, could have intervened to stop the political impasse in Botswana. 

“Even in this situation, it has been boiling and it’s getting worse, and others are saying where is the Southern African Development Community [Sadc]? Why are they not saying anything about it?

“I am convinced this situation would have been over by now when [former Nigerian president Olusegun] Obasanjo came and said to president Ramaphosa: ‘please can you arrange for us to go over there and try to sort this thing out’. I think he had a call with Masisi, who said to him that he will get someone else to do it.”

During the recent fifth session of the SA-Botswana binational commission in Pretoria recently, Ramaphosa was forced to answer questions about a perception that SA was harbouring a fugitive for allowing Khama to stay in the country despite being a wanted man in his country. 

Ramaphosa told the media that Khama was not discussed in his meeting with Masisi.

Last month the Botswana government reportedly summoned Khama to appear in a Gaborone court for allegedly being illegally in possession of firearms. The matter was postponed to June 6 as Khama was a no-show because, he says, he was not served with a summons.

In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Khama admitted he owned “several” firearms but said they were all licensed.

“The charges are that those weapons were acquired during my presidency. When you are a president you are the commander-in-chief and if you want to have weapons without licences you can, but you will have to regularise it once you’ve left the presidency.

“Those weapons I had, even during my presidency, had licences and for the years when I haven’t been president, they continue to renew those licences,” he said.

He accused Masisi of being behind the “trumped-up” charges and plotting to “eliminate” him and harassing his family members, who have also  fled the country.

Khama says he believes the heart of the matter is that he is a threat and could cost Masisi the 2024 election.

“Recently I was given a report by a South African security company which confirms that I am seen by Masisi as his biggest stumbling block for re-election for 2024 because of how I managed to uproot his party from his stronghold in 2019.

“Recently there have been a number of by-elections and they have lost 10 of 13 of them, including in their stronghold. They know that the writing is on the wall and that I have a certain influence among voters. Therefore the idea is that I should be taken out.”

Khama says the first time he heard there was a  plot to poison him was after he left the ruling party. 

“I left the ruling party [Botswana Democratic Party, the party his father, Seretse Khama, founded] around May 2019 because I could see that the democracy, values and principles no longer represented the people. Masisi just became this very intolerant person driven by self-interest.

“A whistle-blower explained how it was going to be done. I contacted the facility owner and asked about someone requesting a transfer of food and beverages in anticipation that I was coming there and I was told yes. 

“This ticked all the boxes and at the same time I was shown diplomatic communication from three countries [two Western and one Middle Eastern] which also stated in the internal correspondence that one of them said there were three attempts to poison me.”

Of about 18 family members, 13 had fled Botswana because they too feared for their lives, he claimed. The Botswana government has denied that Khama and his family are being persecuted.

On the arms charges he faces, Khama said he had told the police: “I have nothing to hide. You can come back tomorrow and I will have all my weapons displayed with all their licences for you to look at and you can take them away.

“To run to court and say you are going to charge me is just vindictive. I have a licence for the weapons and I have had them for a number of years.”

He said the charges were similar to the money-laundering allegations levelled against him on the eve of the 2019 elections.  

Asked why he was in SA if he was innocent, he replied: “I came here because former president Obasanjo wanted to meet me to try to help resolve this issue and when I left the country I suspected that had they known I was going to leave the country they would have tried something to stop me... [After I left] they just went crazy back home with my properties and now with my family because I escaped their clutches.”

He said he was not a refugee but had just decided to leave his country without informing the authorities.

He added that he was reluctant to ask Ramaphosa for permanent residency because he hoped that one day he would return to Botswana. Ramaphosa has not directly been involved in the matter, he said.