- Controversial Khama dossier to come under focus
- Regional peace and security a key agenda item
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
Heads of State of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will address the rift between President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his predecessor Ian Khama at their next SADC Ordinary Meeting in Luanda, Angola this week.
The meeting is scheduled to take place from 16 to 18 August where Khama will also receive the SADC award dedicated to Botswana’s founding president, his father Sir Seretse Khama, alongside his eight contemporaries that was delayed due to the animus when family representatives of the other founding fathers received the posthumous honours at the 42nd Summit of the regional bloc in August last year.
Peace and security
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week, discussion of the region’s state of peace and security is among key items on the agenda of the meeting this week.
Sources say in discussing the rift between Khama and President Masisi, the meeting will refer to a controversial dossier that Khama sent to the EU, the Commonwealth, foreign diplomatic missions in Botswana and SADC itself last June in which the former president accuses President Masisi of macabre crimes that include extrajudicial killings.
The Botswana Gazette reported in an April edition that during his tenure as Chairman of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, president Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa attempted to mediate in the matter but encountered resistance from other member-states, including Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Inside Khama dossier
In addition to extrajudicial killings and organised crime, the Khama dossier makes allegations of corruption and disregard for the rule of law against President Masisi, Chief Justice Terrence Rannowane and the head of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Service Peter Magosi.
“Extra judicial killings at the behest of the state have become an unprecedented phenomenon taking place in broad daylight,” Khama claims in the controversial dossier in which also alleges that 33 extrajudicial killings were perpetrated between 2018 and 2022 in Botswana and names a certain Motlotlegi Aubrey Mongale as one of the victims.
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.