- Khama says the opportunity never presented itself
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
Heads of state of the South African Development Council (SADC) did not address the antipathy between President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his predecessor, Ian Khama, at the recent Ordinary Meeting of the regional bloc in Luanda, Angola.
While sources say some of the leaders had sought to find time to engage Khama and Masisi at the meeting, Khama has told The Botswana Gazette that the opportunity never presented itself.
“I think it is now four years since we (last) shared the stage, as you put it, or even set eyes on each other,” said the former president. “It was a very brief moment when we shook hands as all handshakes tend to be.
Maputo
“The opportunity to engage never came, but not to mean, however, that if that had been anyone’s desire, it could not have been pursued.”
Khama met with some SADC leaders at a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique last month and gave them his controversial dossier in which he accuses President Masisi of macabre crimes that include extrajudicial killings.
According to sources, the dossier was to be a point of reference in discussing the relationship between the two in Angola, with reconciliation in mind.
Foreign diplomatic missions
Khama’s dossier has also been sent to the EU, the Commonwealth and foreign diplomatic missions in Botswana, among others.
In response, the government recently told a coterie of international journalists that what Khama calls extrajudicial killings were mainly gangsters who died in an exchange of fire when the police acted to stop armed robberies.