“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it” Mahatma Gandhi. I read articles written by Mr Sandy Grant on land. I have also written an article on land before titled “Fatshe Leno La Rona”? Unfortunately it seems like the general public in Botswana is paying very little attention to this very important subject.
I would like, therefore, to provoke debate which, hopefully, will assist to get us thinking of this subject. As far as I am concerned land is the most important asset of any people. Many communities in Botswana fought for the land they presently occupy at some point in History.
It belongs to them, passed on by their forefathers. That is why our national anthem says “ fatshe leno la rona. Ke mpho ya modimo. Ke boswa jwa bo rrarona” (gatwe mapolotiki baa re tshega fa re opela karolo e).
Most Batswana genuinely do not know that this gift of God, the inheritance of their forefathers has been stolen from them in broad daylight. Yes stolen; by their own trusted and beloved Government of Botswana under the political leadership of the BDP led by Seretse Kgama.
It sounds crazy for now, but on closer examination it all makes sense. For the reader to appreciate the point I make she/he has to first understand a few concepts.
The first is the concept of ownership. One may use varying words and terms to define ownership. An owner of property, anywhere in the world knows and feels what ownership is. He does not require to be taught this concept. He knows when he has been deprived of his ownership of property.
He knows that for him to truly say he has ownership of property he must firstly have legal title to the property recognised as such by his fellow humans. He must possess the property either physically or constructively.
He must have and enjoy control of that which he owns. He may own it alone or in community with others such as land. When Botswana attained Independence in 1966, there were responsible people living in Botswana. These people had elaborate social structures and laws dealing with economic and political life and more specifically rules dealing with land ownership and use. The people, in their various tribal communities owned the land they occupied at the time of independence. I say they owned it for these reasons. They had physical possession of the land. Each community had an overall leader legitimised as such in terms of the laws (customary. Such leader acted, in terms of law, as custodian / trustee for his community and held land belonging to the community on its behalf. Such leader, invariably a Kgosi, was as such a trustee of the community.
Secondly, the community enjoyed control of the land. Land was controlled by the community in accordance with the customary laws of the community. Thirdly, at independence the new Botswana Government passed a law.
It was named the Tribal Territories Act. It defined and demarcated land belonging to Bakwena, Bakgalagadi, Bakgatla, Balete, Bakalaka, Bangwato and other tribal communities. It effectively reaffirmed title of the land and its ownership by these communities.
Fourth, when the Tribal Land Act was enacted in 1973, it contained a specific clause that stated that the land boards would hold and administer land in the various tribal territories for and on behalf of the tribe’s people of that territory. This further reaffirmed title of Bambukushu, Bayeyi , Bakgalagadi, Babirwa, Batawana, Barolong , and so on over the land of their forefathers.
History provides more than sufficient proof of this point. Now this is how the theft took place immediately after Independence. The first step of the theft took place by removing control of the land away from the communities and placing it in the hands of the politicians of the ruling party (BDP).
Have you ever asked yourself how much land do our ex-presidents, current president have and have sold while the ordinary Motswana who voted them into power struggle to get land, how many masimo are repossessed by the same system? Control is one of the most critical ingredients of ownership.
When control was previously enjoyed by communities through their traditional structures, the Tribal land Act provided that, henceforth all the powers over land previously vested in Dikgosi would be transferred to Land Boards. The Land Boards became the new trustees substituting Dikgosi. There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of Land Boards as an institution or they administering land on behalf of the community, if truly they exercised their powers in the interests of the communities. In fact most Dikgosi would have been more than happy to have such a well resourced and able body available to help them deal with land issues whilst relieving Dikgosi to attend to other nation building challenges.
The problem comes in where the Land Boards, not only took over trusteeship of the land but also usurped total control of the land away from Dikgosi and away from the communities.
I think we can agree that contrary to the notion that the Land Boards administer land for and on behalf of communities, what we have seen over the years shows beyond any doubt that the administration of land has been far removed from the communities, and continues along that path.
In this context I would like the reader to consider these realities. A closer look at the tribal Land Act reveals quite clearly that Dikgosi play no significant role at all in the administration of land belonging to their communities.
Land boards are constituted by appointees of the ministers (political wing of Government) and persons who are supposed to be members of the community elected at the Kgotla (phased out recently). The latter category once elected is still subjected to a vetting process by a vetting team comprising the Land Board Secretary and others. The vetting makes the whole process of elections at the Kgotla all a farce because the vetting team has the power to appoint persons of their choice.
It is a well known reality that once constituted Land Boards are effectively run by the Land Board Secretary. She/he calls the shots to a point where the Land Board members sometimes see themselves as subordinate to the secretary.
The secretary has cause to feel big. She/he is an influential member of the vetting team and has power to decide whether a particular incumbent member will continue retaining his/her seat in the next term of office. The system of governance in place promotes her feeling of might in many ways.
It makes her believe she is bigger than Kgosi. The local government pay structure (the same that remunerates Dikgosi) pays her income higher than Dikgosi. He/she is provided with better conditions of employment and a posh office whilst Dikgosi use old sagging furniture and dilapidated offices.
Often the Land Board secretary is a person who hails from a different tribal community and really has no attachment to the land she is employed to administer or its people. She/he simply does not give a damn about the future of the communities and does not consult with traditional leaders who are naturally the custodians of land. Because his/her boss is the minister, no one else matters. Crucial to the question of control is that ultimately the Land Board, as an institution, sees itself accountable to the minister of lands and not the community.
Many examples can be dug out and found all over the country. Moreover, the land policy of our land boards is not informed by consultation with the community to solicit and implement the wishes of the community about the future of their land, but it is concluded at political level and finalised not by the community with their kgosi, but by the minister.
The same minister is the final decision maker on matters concerning our land. Prior to formation of land tribunals, all appeals on issues of land fell for final determination by the minister, who often is not a member of the community of the land in issue. The minister virtually decided and still decides everything without regard to the community or its leadership. In some cases the ministers decisions were against the wishes of the community. Once control was taken away from communities in the crafty manner described, so did possession. The Tribal Land Act itself places possession of the land in the hands of Land Boards. Most people are tenants on the land of their forefathers. The Land Board is now the owner. It has taken ownership of land from the people through crafty unlawful means of politicians.
Some Land Boards are not even shy to say this that they own the land. They expect you to obtain a lease from them or a certificate to possess the same land passed to you by your forefathers. They dictate conditions of occupation to you on your title of the land, be it a lease or certificate which may include paying rent. All this is wrong. It feels wrong.
It looks ridiculous and indeed it is RIDICULOUS. The second step of the theft came in through the 1994 amendment of the tribal land Act. In this amendment, the Government removed referenced to “tribespersons” and substituted it for “citizens”. That was followed by a calculated propaganda campaign of government to make people believe that in terms of law, land no longer belonged to tribes but to all citizens of the country.
The propaganda went on to promote the idea that everybody was free to reside anywhere in Botswana. This philosophy prevails in the minds of many to this day. Thus when Land Boards previously held land for and on behalf of the tribes people of the particular locality, the 1994 amendment opened the doors to Land Boards allocating land to anybody calling himself a Motswana, without any reference to Dikgosi or the communities who truly own the land.
This policy has had far reaching devastating effects upon our Botswana society. Adjacent land to the cities and towns was what they were eyeing when amending the tribal land leaving the so called free hold land because they dine with them.
Land management policies the influences land use and demarcation (merafe are not consulted). It is in fact largely responsible for the breakdown of the family structure that binds communities and the entire nation of Botswana together. That is a different topic for another time. The point here is that communities were never consulted to give away possession and control of their property in the manner adopted by Government through legislation.
The 1994 amendment was not only inconsistent with the Tribal Territories Act, but runs sharply contradictory to the very mandate of the Land Boards upon their, namely to hold and administer land for and on behalf of the owners being the tribespersons of a particular locality.
The majority of tribespersons all over Botswana really have no clue how their land has come into the hands of people who originate from other districts or foreigners. They have no clue how their forefathers land has been taken away from them by a government they trusted and given away by the same government in a haphazard and irresponsible way. Here we stand as Bangwato, Bakwena, Balete, Bakgatla, Bakalaka, Bahurutshe, and so forth. We have no control over our ancestral inheritance. It is all in the hands of the Land Boards who account to the politicians and not the communities who own the land. The politicians sit in their posh offices in Gaborone and make all the decisions about what should happen on our land.
They issue mining prospecting licenses and various forms of leases for people to come and do as they please on our land without our involvement or benefit.
Batswana ba setso sa Sekgatla led by Kgosi Kgolo Kgafela II want to go into partnership with the Government through the same system, but its so amazing how much negativity is flying around by our fellow country men and women. They would rather share the spoils of our natural resources with a family (kana ke raa De Beers) gona le Bakgatla.
They allocate the land to themselves and persons from outside our territory including foreigners whilst our children wait decades to be allocated that which belongs to them by gift of God and blood of our forefathers. Are Batswana happy with this state of affairs? Of course not! It is hypocrisy at its worst.
That is why the system of Land Boards has all turned out to be a national disaster, now approaching the point of a national uprising. ISAIAH 1:7 “Your country is desolate, your cities burned with; your fields are being striped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.” The entire scheme of the Tribal Land Act is fraudulent, where it surreptitiously takes away possession and control of land from communities without due process of the constitution of Botswana. The constitution provided clearly that no person shall be deprived of his property by Government unless such deprivation is met with fair compensation.
Deprivation by statute law is not exempt from this constitutional protection. None of the communities in Botswana have been made aware of the true effect of these various statutory interventions concerning their land. None has been compensated for the deprivation. They rely on politicians to speak for them. The same politicians let them down each time.
The scheme thrives upon the apparent legitimacy of statute law, and ignorance of the people who remain unaware that such law in effect has stolen their land; and, it is unlawful against the constitution of Botswana. The illness which we all suffer in Botswana is to assume so readily that all laws passed by government are lawful, simply because they bear the stamp of parliament.
It is high time for communities to stand up and reclaim that which was passed to them by their forefathers as a gift of God. The rising is a matter of duty and responsibility. We owe it to ourselves, our future generations, our forefathers and God.
It is only then that the powerful message in our national anthem will carry meaning. I urge communities to unite against this daylight robbery of the people of Botswana which has turned them into beggars in the land of their forefathers. KE NAKO. It is time for positive change. The time for falsehood is over. “In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examined the question at issue, but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth brass farthing.” Mark Twain.
“Ke Nako”
