I have been following with great enthusiasm the media reportings on the state of affairs in Botswana. I must confess it has been an eye opener that this country has evolved to this level.
The current discussion and reporting on the directorate of intelligence and security in Botswana is my point of interest which has aroused in me a desire to pose these small set of questions. About two weeks ago there was a piece in the newspapers written by a man or woman explaining that Botswana is a young state and that we don’t understand the intelligence world and how it operates. Just as I was finally getting convinced that he or she is right, the Sunday Standard newspaper followed with another story that the DIS has infiltrated the Botswana telecommunications corporation network and that the man or woman who authored the media piece explaining what might be happening is just a fake name that is not even available on google and yahoo search engines.
Further the Sunday Standard reports that their investigations on the IP of the computer used to send them the email of Kruger Simonvelt reveal that the computer belongs to the government of Botswana. This is quite confusing. I also tried to search the name Kruger Simonvelt but never came with anything. I have then went back to the piece he authored titled ‘MY GRAIN ON ISAAC KGOSI AND BOTSWANA’S TEETHING INTELLIGENCE ORGAN’. I went back to it trying my luck to somehow come to a finding as to what exactly the author’s purpose was. I have since then compared my thinking with the explanation of the sunday standard and for some time agreed with Sunday Standard until I started to get a set of questions unanswered.
This was after the Sunday Standard newspaper reported enormously on the DIS and allegations levelled against the DIS boss Mr Isaac Kgosi and the DCEC investigations into the whole matter. Obviously that came as another shock in awe, I am assuming not only to me but to many others like me who are not that much conversant with what is happening and hence dependant on the media reporting. I am now just writing these small set of questions to seek clarity on a few issues so that I may broaden my understanding of the subject matter at hand as led by Sunday Standard. My questions revolve around: despite Kruger Simonvelt questionable true identity in subsequent to what the sunday standard has reported, what if what this Kruger Simonvelt person is telling us is true?
Reading through Kruger’s writings over and over again I am picking some element of sense. I am learning that what is happening in Botswana is peculiar to all other countries where intelligence organs are newly set up as citizens often fail to understand what is going on and subsequently lose trust. Yet what confuses me is that the Sunday Standards has reported that the computer used by the author belongs to the government of Botswana. Now this more confusion. But yet again I ask myself another question; so what if the computer used by the anonymous author belongs to the government of Botswana? Does it take away substance and truth in what he or she has written? Is it not a matter of the Sunday Standard playing the player and not the ball? I then posed myself another question to see if the whole thing of the computer used belonging to the government makes sense. So what if the government is deliberately making it public knowledge on exactly what is going on at the DIS?
That the information on the bank accounts in question cannot be of public knowledge as the DIS operations are supposed to be secretive and discreet? But then I got confused again and asked myself why is the government not coming out clearly and openly to explain? But then I find myself with yet another question. What if the government does not want to set a trend of explaining itself?
The next in my mind was another question: what will the government lose if it explained itself? But then again since this whole issue started I have not come across such an explanation as of the author in question and until anyone proves the anonymous author otherwise I will agree with him or her regardless of what computer he was using, where he or she was writing from. It is my hope that I am making sense as I will continue to watch the space as my worry is; what if the author is not lying?
*Editor’s Note: The writer has requested to use a pseusonym becase he is a civil servant
