By Dr Thabo MBEKI
December 10, 2012.
Prof Lydia Saleshando,
Republic of Botswana.
Dear Professor Saleshando,I apologise most sincerely for this very late response to your earlier communications informing me about the passing away of our leader, Motsamai Mpho, a comrade and a friend.
When these communications reached me I was out of the country and did not have the possibility to respond on time, especially ahead of the funeral on December 8 of a great hero of the peoples of Botswana, South Africa and Africa, Rra Motsamai Keyecwe Mpho.
Death always affects us deeply as Africans, even and especially when it robs us of the company of the very old, as Rre Motsamai Mpho was when he left us.
I imagine that this is because we know this very well that the respected old, as Rre Motsamai Mpho was, in fact serve as our guides and lodestars, ever present among us to advise us successfully to address our personal and national challenges.
When they leave, as, in the end, they must, it is inevitable that those of us who live would feel a great sense of loss, because we feel bereft at the loss of our guides and lodestars, as we do now that Motsamai Mpho has left us and therefore the world of the living.
Personally, as the then President of South Africa, I was very pleased when I signed the Presidential Decree according to which Rre Motsamai Keyecwe Mpho was admitted into the honoured ranks of Members of our National Orders, as an esteemed Member of the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo.
Even from my own personal experience, I knew this very well that Rre Mpho very well deserved this high honour, bestowed on him by the people of liberated South Africa.
This was exactly because he, a Motswana, was one of the architects of our emancipation, and will therefore remain forever in our hearts and minds as one of our own eminent liberators.
To this day, I can see his face in my mind’s eye. I can still hear the timbre of his voice. I can imagine his gait as he walked, because he was to me, as to many of us, a giant.
We mourn the loss of one of our leaders from across our common border, a Motswana, who had to leave South Africa exactly because the then racist powers in our country correctly understood that Motsamai Mpho posed a great danger to the very survival of the evil apartheid system they sought to sustain – which he did!
What they did not foresee was that Motsamai Mpho whom they ‘exiled from South Africa’, ‘exiled’ into his own country, would make an immense contribution to help ensure that Botswana would become a reliable rear base for our struggle for liberation, which it became.
Kindly convey our deep and sincere condolences to his brother, Moaparankwe, the rest of the Mpho family, and the entirety of their community, relatives and friends.
What Rre Motsamai Keyecwe Mpho did as an outstanding African patriot not only helped to liberate the people of South Africa, but also cemented the relationship of genuine friendship and solidarity between the sister peoples of Botswana and South Africa, and confirmed the truth that as Africans we share a common destiny.
As a South African, a foot soldier for Africa’s liberation, who grew up inspired by the example set by Motsamai Mpho, I feel immensely privileged to repeat:
Bayethe!, great Son of Africa, Motsamai Keyecwe Mpho, esteemed member of the eminent Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo!
You did everything you had to do! Those of us who live, who respect your memory, have a task to do our best faithfully to walk in your footsteps!
Roballa ka khotso, senatla sa dinatla!
Thabo Mbeki, former President, RSA
