In every way conceivable, the balance has tipped. For a long time the darling of the United States, this week Botswana opted to break the ties. The separation was silly and dramatic.
It could so easily have been avoided. Some of us have long seen it coming. Botswana is a democracy in decline. It is led by an intolerant and increasingly irascible security-minded outfit that has little appreciation of international geopolitics. Were it not for the guise of elections with which they continue to cloak themselves, Botswana’s leadership of today would easily qualify as a junta. It was only a matter of time before even their most ardent adherents in the West got disillusioned. Botswana Government’s tone in its response to American apprehensions over the arrest of a newspaper has taken many by surprise. Others may aver that such a tone was a whiff of patriotism. That is wrong. Botswana government behavior has been typically African.
From now on, the United States government will view Botswana as not much different from say Zimbabwe. For many in the media the crabby behavior publicly displayed by the Government of Botswana towards the United States is nothing new. The blood-sprouting belligerence, petulance and indignation that run across the Botswana Government press release underscore the level of intolerance that many of us in the media have had to put up with almost on a daily basis since 2008. It is who the target happens to this time around that has left us all shocked, especially given the innocuous nature of the American press release to which Botswana was responding.
By taking America head-on, we are strutting through an untenable course. We cannot afford to lose America. Talking to diplomats, it becomes immediately apparent that relations between America and Botswana have been strained for quite a while. They say the fissures had started to develop as way back as 2011. The arrest of Outsa Mokone was only a spark that brought down a wall that was already on its way down. Just over two years ago President Khama, together with two other African Heads of State were invited to the White House. Khama turned down the invitation.
Officially he said he was busy with pre-planned official engagements. The truth is that he was busy attending a birthday party of a friend who was turning fifty somewhere in the belly of the Kalahari Desert. Last Month he again boycotted the United States ÔÇôAfrica Summit that was hosted by Barack Obama. Khama is making a mess of trying to carve Botswana’s new role in the fast emerging international geopolitics. The trouble with Khama is that for the last six years or so he has been trying to ride two horses at the same time. He fought might and main to preach democracy abroad while working continuously working to shrink it in his own backyard. But by shouting down the United States in the manner that his government did, our President is simply punching above his weight. Any student of international relations will tell you that any country’s diplomatic leverage is only as powerful as that country’s economic power. When it comes to economic might, we cannot talk about America and Botswana in the same line. And that is not all. America has always viewed Botswana as a poster child of African possibilities.
When the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton toured Africa about four years ago, she mentioned Botswana as an example of democracy and human progress that was possible in Africa. She did that in no less than ten times in her various speeches across the continent. President Khama’s spin doctored ceased on this as a vote of confidence on their master and splashed Clinton’s speeches across the state owned media. There was no mention of America meddling and interfering in Botswana’s internal affairs. But when the same America now says they are worried to see something that is in variance with Botswana’s traditions, all of a sudden America is no longer qualified to talk about Botswana because there are things like Guantanamo Prisons. The truth of the matter is that in the eyes of the world Botswana faces diminishing trust even among traditional allies. Botswana does not know how to handle international criticism. This is mainly on account of the fact that since independence, all we have ever known is praise. And this became all so apparent this week. But we are a nation on a decline. And if this decline in trust is not stemmed, it will soon morph into irrelevance and ultimately mutate into something akin to a pariah state. We are not there yet. But the telltale signs are there for all to see.
The language that Botswana Government used against American Government this week is poisonous. It is a kind of language that we used to think Botswana Government reserved for such states like Sudan and to a lesser extent Kenya, which are led by the International Criminal Court-indicted fugitives and suspects. Botswana Government has no prospect of standing up to the United States government. Not for the first time Batswana are being forced to buy a toy phone.
The first time was when we gullibly believed upon his arrival that President Khama was a messiah. The man is an ordinary politician. Sadly it would seem like there are many among us who are still stuck in the fairytales of Khama omnipotence believing that if anybody can taken on the united States it has to be him. Such people, we are sorry to say, are living in a dream world ÔÇô a fantasy laden utopia. The solution lies in us recalibrating our expectations of Ian Khama. We rated him too highly. And we have been proved wrong. He too promised much more than he could deliver. And we are paying a heavy price for our high expectations of him. And as it showed this week we are yet to pay even higher prices for his other bad judgments.
