Retired General Gaolathe Galebotswe has always been at the beginning historical change in the annals of the Botswana defence Force (BDF)
When his predecessor General Carter Masire retired in 2012 as the last member of Botswana’s first batch of military recruits to occupy the BDF top post, this was more than just a change of guard. It was also the end of an era.
General Galebotswe who took up the baton found himself standing at the beginning of a new one. In his maiden address on August 10, 2012, he promised to “motivate for best human resources practices to develop key skills and competencies”. He also pledged to make essential the development of force personnel and to ditch old personnel management practices, saying they impeded organisational growth.
From the time he stepped into the army’s highest office, General Galebotswe possessed the rugged independence and integrity of a natural leader. And throughout his tenure, determined to nurture the army’s integrity and good governance he got rid of the army culture where agents would knock at the commanders’ door promoting their merchandise. “That had to stop,” he was quoted saying in one of the local newspapers.
“Procurement is not the prerogative of the commander of the BDF. Procurement has a structure and it is not ad hoc. Procurement structures are in place now and working well. These structures involve the BDF, the defence minister and the permanent secretary. The minister presents to Cabinet as well as the Defence Council….While I was the commander, I stopped the middlemen who are also called agents, from calling the shots. Agents are only needed when you need more information about certain equipment”, he said.
This put Galebotswe on collision course with one of Botswana’s biggest business interests. The arms procurement industry is not only one of the biggest in the country, but also attracts investors with deep pockets and powerful political connections. General Galebotswe found himself on the cross hairs of the industry big guns.
It was during his tenure that the BDF procured close to P3 billion of wheeled armoured vehicles from Switzerland. As the brokers fought for the plum tender, He found himself caught in the crossfire. Following a tip off from one of the interested brokers, the Sunday Standard in its edition of 16-21-2016 wrote that the BDF commander swung the tender to a friend one Abe Mbaakanyi to further his nest and build his legacy. As it turned out General Galebotswe was neither a friend nor an associate of Mbaakanyi and was not involved in any legacy building drive. In fact he did not have any personal interest in the tender. The informant also claimed that General Galebotswe masked the BDF budget through deficit spending to ensure that the award to General Dynamics go through. The Sunday Standard has since established that this was also a false claim aimed at tarnishing General Galebotswe in a bid to force his hand to stop the award of the tender to a rival broker.
His lawyer, Diba Diba remembers how a number of Galebotswe’s former army colleagues stumbled over each other to give testimonies about his integrity and exemplary character.
The BDF’s fifth commander has accumulated what psychologists call idiosyncrasy credits—a stock of goodwill derived from his history of competence and integrity—which he can cash in when challenging norms or those with more power.
It thus did not come as a surprise when General Galebotswe broke with his predecessors’ tradition of joining the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) or remaining part of the establishment old boys club and instead became civil society’s leading voice for positive change.
Competently courageous, his reputation and track record place him on a moral high ground to speak truth to power.
Local media houses always count on his voice of reason to cut through the confused national cacophony. As Batswana were scratching their heads for answers following the massacre of rhinos by poachers, switched on journalists turned to General Galebotswe to shed light on the national crisis. He explained that anti-poaching operations are intelligence led.
“The problem stems not from lack of weapons for the department of wildlife and national parks, but from an intelligence service that serves individual interests”, he said. That was quintessential Galebotswe, always had the courage of his convictions. As one of the pioneers of BDF’s anti-poaching operations in the late 1990’s the former army commander was not just blowing hot air. He is actually an authority on the subject.
A security expert, the former commander has also publicly weighed in on the raging turf war between the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) and The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC). Dispensing his nuggets of wisdom, General Gaolathe said that the DIS ought to have understood the mandate of the DCEC before carrying out their operation at the DCEC head offices.
“I must, however, caution that DCEC, of the two, is one such institution which will, for any given reason, have files for all its citizens, including even our number one citizen. Because of the nature of their work, such information should be accorded the highest security classification. DISS has to be very clear on this as failure to understand this mandate to its fullest and accord DCEC its sacred responsibility may threaten national security. DISS needs to tone down and allow established legislative structures to help on the way forward if there are issues that warrant discovery,” cautioned Galebotswe.
A crusader for positive change, Galebotswe is also the promoter of a legal battle in which more than 500 retired soldiers are challenging government’s “unlawful” migration of their pension benefits and pension scheme to the Botswana Public Officers Pensions Fund (BPOPF) which they say has resulted in diminution of their pension benefits. The legal issue plays well to his inner champion of social justice. Indications are that Gaolathe who is cited as the 1st Plaintiff in the case has spent his resources to traverse the lengths and breaths of this country recruiting retired soldiers to the cause.
He told the court that they delayed in delivering their declaration because of logistical challenges of going around the country to find other plaintiffs who were interested in joining this action.
Galebotswe averred that following the issuance of the writ of summons, many retired BDF members who are spread across the country had expressed a wish to be included in the matter, and thus delayed the process.
“Pensioners should not retire into poverty. The plaintiffs are former members and some current members of the BDF who stood sentinel over the sovereignty of Botswana for many years. Not only that, even in the arena of international diplomacy and peacekeeping, the BDF has been assembled, paraded and deployed with aplomb. This court takes judicial notice of one such deployment in Somalia in 1992/3 under the aegis of the United Nations on a mission aptly styled ‘Operation Restore Hope.’ The case is thus of national importance”, said Justice Leburu during the case.
General Galebotswe, a commando squadron by training attended a standard training course at the Royal Military Academy in the United Kingdom n December 1984. He then proceeded to Special Forces training in September 1986,
GG as he is affectionately called became part of an elite team of commandos in the BDF and rose through the ranks, to become a troop leader of the commando unit. He subsequently became commanding officer between 1995 and 2000.
“This is a unit where team spirit is essential, and with the trust I gained from my mates and principals, my leadership abilities were testament, to my then and current professional sphere,” Lt Gen Galebotswe has been quoted saying.
In 1998, then occupying the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, Galebotswe was assigned to lead a battalion contingent during Operation BOLEAS that was conducted by Botswana and South Africa, under SADC, as a military intervention in Lesotho crisis.
He continued rising through the ranks, being appointed assistance chief of staff, then chief of staff before becoming ground forces commander in April 2010.
He was subsequently appointed deputy commander, holding the role between May 2012 and August 2012, when the then Commander in Chief, Lt Gen Seretse Khama Ian Khama picked him as BDF commander.
