One of the deciding attributes of Ian Khama’s foreign policy was to stack diplomatic appointments with former politicians ÔÇô many of them failed ones and totally clueless on foreign policy.
This was done at the expense of career diplomats and professional cadres.
At the height of this madness, there were no less than ten such appointees scattered around the world ÔÇô a majority of them at some of the most critical world capitals like Washington, New Delhi, Tokyo, Lagos and Pretoria.
People were so chosen, not because they had anything to offer, but simply because there was no room for them within the political system back at home.
Under Khama foreign service became one of the most unproductive investments inside Government.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi must avoid this pitfall that has not only cheapened the foreign service but has also reversed the gains made over the years and also cost Botswana dearly as it denied the country requisite diplomatic skills.
One of the main tasks of a diplomat is to advise Government, especially the President on opportunities, challenges and threats emanating from abroad.
These could be on matters of policy, trade and even security.
All these are not easy matters.
Ambassadors and High Commissioners are the president’s interlocutors abroad.
They not only represent him, his Government and country they also portray his vision of the world while also sending back to him signals on how the world sees him, his Government and country.
Botswana is a developing country with immense economic challenges.
The country needs to foster strong ties abroad that are linked to creating economic opportunities at home.
There is no evidence to suggest that Roy Blackbeard was posted to London where he stayed for well over 20 years for any of those ideals.
He was there as part of political patronage as he was being paid back for having agreed to sacrifice his political career for Ian Khama when he agreed to relinquish his parliamentary seat in 1998.
There is nothing to suggest Kenny Kapinga was sent to Pretoria and then Harare because he was the best qualified to serve Botswana in those two capitals.
His deployment to South Africa was a clear and deliberate skill and human resource misallocation.
The wicked strategy was to thwart and foil Kapinga’s path to becoming a Police Commissioner where he would clearly have excelled and in that place appoint a lackey that could easily be manipulated by the toxic security axis of Khama and Isaac Kgosi at the DIS.
During Khama’s tenure, Botswana Government failed to invest in Foreign Service talent.
There was no grooming as politicians were plucked from the party or civil service and sent abroad where they passed time literally cooling their feet in the beaches.
When cabinet minister Lesego Motsumi fell out of favour with the Khama regime, she was banished to India.
This followed answers she gave in parliament where she answered with brutal honesty that the Khama family had been by far the biggest and unfair beneficiary of military procurement.
Former Minister Jacob Nkate was banished to Tokyo because had dared to express his ambitions to one day become a head of State.
No thought was given to the economic strategic importance that both India and Japan had to Botswana and whether or not those two politicians were the rightful people.
Both Japan and India are massive industrial areas.
When Tebelelo Seretse persisted in her aggressive challenge against Pelonomi Venson for a parliamentary seat in Serowe, Khama decided Tebelelo Seretse had become a political nuisance. He banished her to Washington as a way of buying peace for his beloved Venson.
The United States is by far the most powerful and biggest economic power of the world.
No thinking was put behind the importance of Washington to Botswana, much less whether or not Tebelelo Seretse was the appropriate person for such a position.
No more glaring example of how far bottom the Foreign Service had been relegated was set than when Metlhaeno Gaseitsewe was sent to Cape Town and then Harare.
The man was simply being rewarded for his defection from the opposition Botswana National Front to the governing Botswana Democratic Party.
He had been a councilor with not even a day’s experience in Foreign Service and foreign policy.
The examples are numerous. But the tone was set; a systematic onslaught was waged against career diplomats.
The message was for them clear ÔÇô they had become expendable.
In the same token they became by the day more puzzled and bemused by just what their Government wanted and expected of them.
How were they expected to play a meaningful role in the face of such clear humiliation by their political masters?
Feeling threatened and under siege, career diplomats behaved in the most natural and instinctive way.
They became tribal, recoiled and set their masters up for failure. They succeeded in that the country’s foreign policy became a mess.
Another outcome of it was a general seeping and ebbing of moral among professional and career diplomats.
The country became by far the biggest loser as foreign policy lost not just direction but also its position and importance in the general stacking of government priorities and rankings.
Going forward, Foreign Policy will be one of the most testing areas for President Masisi’s tenure.
Early signs are at least for now a somewhat encouraging harbinger.
He seems to understand the importance of attaching trade, economy and security to foreign policy.
And depending on his staying power and also consistency in his messaging, foreign policy might in the end prove one of his biggest successes.
And it starts with creating a depth in skills.
And that depth can only be achieved by appointing rightful and dynamic people as both Ambassadors and High Commissioners.
It is a painful truth that political patronage cannot be altogether abolished in Foreign Service appointments.
But Masisi can enhance that by finding a right mix between professional cadres and clear-cut political patronage appointments, including for example pioneering by appointing even well-known opposition activists to these positions as is so often the case in more vibrant democracies.
