Never before has the Botswana government expressed its position on Zimbabwe in as frank and unequivocal terms as it has lately. That notwithstanding, Clifford Maribe, the director of public relations, research and information in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC) says that Botswana has not broken ranks with other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries which prefer quiet diplomacy when dealing with Robert Mugabe.
“Botswana has not broken ranks with SADC,” Maribe asserts.┬á┬á┬á
While it may not have changed its position on Zimbabwe, of late Botswana has certainly been acting a lot more different from other SADC countries.
When South African President Thabo Mbeki said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe, Botswana’s Foreign Affairs minister, Phandu Skelemani, taking a cue from President Ian Khama, stated clearly and in unequivocal terms that there was a crisis in Zimbabwe.
That was soon after the Botswana government had hosted Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change at the government’s VIP guest house in Gaborone.
During that time, Tsvangirai received at the Botswana government expense all the protocol reserved for visiting Heads of State.
As if that was not enough, about two weeks ago Skelemani was back on Btv saying that Botswana expected nothing short of a free and fair election in the up-coming presidential run-off poll.
He went on to enumerate conduct that would be unacceptable to the Botswana Government. Skelemani was careful not to mention names of any Zimbabwean politicians or political parties but anyone well-informed about the political pornography north of Botswana’s border would not have had a hard time decoding the minister’s message.
At least three times this month, the MFAIC has put out press statements expressing grave concern about the Zimbabwean situation. To show that this time they mean business on Zimbabwe, government officials have also been sending those statements to newsrooms of international media outlets like BBC, CNN and Sky News.
The latest press release makes the revelation that Zimbabwe’s ambassador, Thomas Mandigora, was summoned to the MFAIC headquarters on Thursday.
According to the statement later put out by the Botswana government after the meeting, the Botswana government “expressed strong concern” over the latest arrests and detentions of Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti, MDC’s secretary general.
By no measure does this keep in line with quiet diplomacy.
With regard to the summoning of Mandigora, Maribe explains that it is normal practice in the conduct of foreign relations to summon an ambassador or High Commissioner to register a protest or concern to be communicated to the envoy’s capital or government.
“Other ambassadors have been summoned before,” he states but would not give any further details of whom, when and why.
The fact though is that, in the past when such displeasures were registered, they were never followed by press releases.
MFAIC’s press statements also raise the question: why didn’t Botswana react as strongly when the Zimbabwean government did worse?
Two good examples about the bad things that happened are when hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans were displaced in a months-long crackdown on shanty towns in 2005. Over 300 000 people lost their places and abode in an exercise which was ostensibly carried out to punish people who had voted against ZANU-PF, (the Mugabe party) in parliamentary elections. Appearing on state television that same year, Mugabe said that the illegal structures were being demolished in order that brand new ones could be constructed in their place.
The other, more recent example was last year when Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders were beaten up by security forces.
The one lasting image of this incident is a disheveled Tsvangirai emerging from a police cell with a hideously dis-configured face.
Botswana’s quiet diplomacy was of a different kind then and there were no press statements expressing alarm and outrage. That has changed and the one interesting detail is that there is no evidence of the current level of frankness having occurred on the other side of April 1. That date is important because that was when former President Festus Mogae handed over power to Ian Khama. However, Maribe denies that Botswana’s current approach to Zimbabwe has anything to do with the change of its presidential guard.
The truth though is that the change of mindset coincided with the arrival of Ian Khama at the state house, where a few days upon arrival he insisted to the SADC Chairman, President Levy Mwanamwasa of Zambia to call an extraordinary meeting on Zimbabwe.
“Government had hoped that the situation in Zimbabwe would improve, but the latest developments which follow a series of other events that occurred over a period of time are deeply worrying as they may derail the holding of a peaceful, free and fair run-off election. As a matter of fact, Botswana, which shares a border with Zimbabwe, would be adversely affected by an influx of refugees amongst others, should the situation deteriorate further in that country,” Maribe says.
Such influx, he adds, would compel Botswana to divert its resources from its national development programmes to the welfare and upkeep of hordes of Zimbabwean refugees pouring through the border. In the past, Skelemani has indicated that contingency plans to forestall the eventuality of a humanitarian crisis are already in place.
Compassion aside, Botswana has no option of turning away desperate Zimbabweans as it is a signatory to an international treaty that obligates it to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees.
“Botswana, therefore, finds and feels it necessary to make her legitimate concerns known at this point in time in the hope that those involved put an end to their unacceptable activities and avoid a further deterioration of the situation in Zimbabwe,” Maribe says.
