Dear Editor
Reference is hereby made to an article entitled “Political debates have to be courteous and scholarly”, which appeared in the Gazette newspapers (02-08 June 2008) and Sunday Standard (29-07 June 2008) by Mac Donald Peloetletse. The author of the fabricated article (Peloetletse) decided to disregard the context under which my article was made and naively preached “botho” to me, launching an unsubstantiated, tired and baseless attack on me for my criticism of Kentse Rammidi and the untouchable Ian Khama.
It is imperative to state that my article will be premised on the words of the gallant revolutionary Che Guevara wherein he said, “It’s a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies.”
As far as I am concerned, Peloetletse is a BDP lackey and, naturally, BDP and BNF are not birds of same feathers, therefore no one can expect any BDP surrogate to speak good about its enemy. Peloetletse is a political nonentity and a well known political clown who cannot even be taken seriously by Ian Khama. It seems like the BDP and the so-called Khama’s sidekicks have become very emotional.
All of a sudden they perceive people as being disrespectful, issuing all sorts of threats including legal action.
As I know their barbaric habits, I was not at all amazed when I received a phone call from Peloetletse threatening me and telling me that he is an ex-soldier.
I don’t know what that has got to do with me. It is worth noting that “barking” is not an insult but a figure of speech. It can only be perceived to be an insult in the brains of some unscrupulous elements. Peloetletse hit the nail on the head when he exposed his ignorance by stating that I referred to Rammidi as “psychopath”. What a lie!
How could he become so economical with the truth? Never, never have I ever used that word in my article.
Maybe he was hallucinating.
It is very unfortunate that Peloetletse and other political delinquents want to portray me as a disrespectful person; his article was calculated to discredit, defame and embarrass my party, BNF. I have to state I am a well discipline person.
Even though I have no intention of exaggerating my sense of self worth and discipline, it has come to my attention that Peloetletse does not know me and, as such, cannot talk let alone write about me. Unlike other people, I won’t kneel down to the BDP for survival. It’s better to die standing rather than on your knees, says Guevara.
I urge Peloetletse to put BDP house in order before he can start pointing figures at anyone. Like I said, years ago the BDP is a party “e e senang botho” who can forget Mogae’s utterances when he told the Tsolamosese residents that. “ke tsile go le kabolola ditshoka” (I am going to remove wax from your ears), who can forget that Khama once called other MPs vultures? And just recently BDP thugs disrupted a BNF rally in Serowe.
Is the above a sense of botho, Mr Peloetletse? I think you must be consistent with your criticism.
Lastly, my advice to Peloetletse and his group of praise poets is that if they have a desire to raise debates with me, they should engage me in a principled and issue-based discussion rather than engaging in opportunistic petty politics. I urge them to engage me on issues I raise and nothing else. I must contend unequivocally that I remain unfazed and completely unmoved in the face of the barrage of attacks misplaced, criticism and threats.
I owe no one an apology.
As I am about to conclude the words of comrade Che Guevara come to mind, please allow me to adopt as my own the following words “I don’t care if I fall as long as some one picks up my gun and keeps on fighting”.
Arafat Khan
Molepolole
