Of the entire public service, the diplomatic service has a culture all its own. Because by law diplomatic appointments the State President’s purview, there is absolutely no attempt of accountability to the public. Much less there is hardly ever any attempt by the public to question the criteria behind all these appointments.
All this is made worse by the fact that until quite recently, diplomats were all too happy to see themselves as a premier breed within the public service. This means that depending on the president’s management style, it is often within the realms of possibilities that not even a Foreign Affairs Minister has a say on who is appointed a High Commissioner or Ambassador. For Botswana there is however one common thread that runs through almost the entire shale of the country’s diplomatic appointments ÔÇô political party allegiance. It is not by accident that Roy Blackbeard has been Botswana’s High Commissioner to London for almost a generation now. It also is not by accident that Molosiwa Selepeng has been in Australia since he was banished from his job as Permanent Secretary to the President.
I would be hard pressed to believe that these two men are so good at it that no replacements have been found all these years. What it simply means is that the two gentlemen have either been able to negotiate for themselves to stay there for that long or that staying there for so long serves those in power so much so that as recompense in the case of Blackbeard or penalty in the case of Selepeng these two men are better left in those faraway places for as long as it takes ÔÇô for better or for worse. From the look of things Blackbeard will only vacate his London job the day Ian Khama ceases to be President of Botswana, while Selepeng will only leave his Canberra job the day Eric Molale leaves his current job as Permanent Secretary to the President.
But that really is all beside the point. The point rather is to highlight the extent to which excluding everybody else outside the ruling Botswana Democratic Party has over the years devalued the diplomatic service. It is histrionic to expect that the President will not be inclined to appoint members of his party to become ambassadors and high commissioners as diplomats. But the extent to which we are doing it in Botswana has gone over the rails. From the top of my mind I can name no less than ten Commissioners and Ambassadors whose appointments have been so patently partisan as to be bereft of any patriotism and national unity often demanded from the private media: Lesego Motsumi has replaced Dorcas Kgosietsile in (Delhi), Lt. General Louis Fisher (Abuja), Roy Blackbeard (London).
Most recently we have had Gladys Kokorwe who just completed her tour in Harare. She now wants to become Speaker of National Assembly. There has been Motlhagodi Molomo in Pretoria as we have had Duke Lefhoko in Windhoek. Before then we had people like GUS Matlhabaphiri and Boometswe Mokgothu. As we speak Jacob Nkate is in Tokyo while Tebelelo Seretse is in Washington. The whole list can turn out to be much more expansive. All the above are BDP card carrying members. As a reward for turning his back against opposition and joining the BDP, Metlhaeno Gaseitsewe was sent to Cape Town where he spent much of his time with his feet in a beach. The Cape Town Consulate had been opened earlier to provide a job for Major General Moeng Pheto as he waited for an opening in politics. That office has now been closed and Gaseitswe has been moved to Harare.
I doubt the man knows what is expected of him in all these travels which he possibly views as some kind of unexplained, endless and exorbitantly generous state-sponsored holiday travel. Admittedly not all of Ambassadors and diplomats are BDP members. Very few career diplomats remain, despite a good of them having been recently brought back home; unceremoniously so, we might add. Within the service there are still officials sent away because their presence in the country was seen as inconveniently irritating. For all his brilliant mind, Kenny Kapinga should not be in Harare. A career police officer with a passion for policing he watched in helpless despair as he was shunted out of the service just a he imagined his turn to become Commissioner had arrived.
He was sent to Pretoria to cool his feel before being transferred to Harare. With succession issues at Botswana Police now resolved, Kapinga has become expendable. He will very soon be discarded from the diplomatic service. Never a BDP card carrying member, afterall he never belonged to the cult that is our diplomatic service. For a small country like Botswana with very few missions abroad, we find ourselves in a situation where close to 80 percent of our diplomats are ruling party politicians? Where is everybody else? Where are career diplomats? Or more to the point where are other sectors of our country like opposition sympathizers? As it is the entire country is paying an exceedingly higher price for diplomatic appointments whose sole criterion is allegiance to the BDP. This systematic and determined predisposition to exclude everybody who is not BDP is diabolical.
South Africa is an example that often comes to my mind as being explicitly multi-partisan in its appointment of diplomatic postings. The practice started under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. Reverend Frank Mdlalose, a fierce opponent of Nelson Mandela and the ANC in the build-up to that country’s historic 1994 elections was later appointed Ambassador to Egypt. Dr. Mdlalose, it is worth noting had before then served as National Chairman of Mongosuthu Buthelezi’s IFP ÔÇô a confirmed ANC nemisis. And that is not the only example of South Africa’s inclusivity when it comes to diplomatic appointments.
When he retired from politics, Tony Leon was appointed South Africa’s Ambassador to Argentina. A very capable and charismatic leader, Leon had made his name opposing ANC in parliament when the liberation movement was at the height of its popularity. Tony Leon did not have to join the ANC before he could be appointed Ambassador to serve his country abroad. That kind of appointment can never happen in Botswana of today. Thankfully not all is lost. There is now talk of a push back and open resistance by career diplomats who feel left out by elements they view as inherently immoral carpetbaggers who have swelled the ranks of the country’s diplomatic service.
An insider tells me that President Khama is also awake to the rot of the diplomatic service occasioned by over politicisation. He is said to have recently rejected requests by two sitting BDP members of parliament who wanted to be sent abroad on a government sponsored diplomatic holiday. “We have too many of our party members there already,” the President told the starry-eyed MPs. It’s a good start, Mr. President. But you also have to seriously consider bringing Roy back home.
