Forget about the noisy armchair conservationists who are threatening to boycott Botswana’s tourism and diamonds. It is in their nature to always declare their whiteness. Their incoherent nose is part of their usual declaration about whose words should matter most in the sphere of public policy around the globe.
Indeed some of the bigoted animal rights activists even used the word ‘bastard’ on us. Some must have even called us niggers for the bold decision to go against their selfish and inconsiderate wishes based on utter ignorance and a huge dose of lack of intelligence.
It is a waste of time to try to convince hardened racists that Africans are capable of making wise decisions for themselves and about their resources. Many of these stingy conservationists have grown comfortable with their indignation and have been accustomed to having someone else to blame for their own problems.
Perhaps we need to be reminded how US President Donald Trump challenged Obama’s citizenship on the basis of the colour of his skin? More so how he called Mexicans rapists and criminals and proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the USA? So these loud racists and miscreants tourists using elephants as their ‘trump’ card are not anything we haven’t seen before and their outburst merely embodies their hatreds of persons of colour.
In this context, there is no point whining over the odd and erratic behaviours of a section of the human species that has resisted the historic march of a civilization they purport to own. Their irritating noise shall be drowned by reason. It is a fact that rational beings whatever their colour, will continue to visit Botswana because they understand that at times unpopular decisions have to be taken.
Nothing has ever rattled Botswana like the decision of a former president to violate the unwritten rule that former presidents should never assail their successors or dabble in active politics. The logic of the rule is that it would be morally reprehensible for a former president to nag his successor.
Whereas the rule is unofficial, it has come to form part of what democratic societies expect from a retired president. The practice has ensured that ex-presidents took an advisory role and dispensed advice to their successors as and when necessary.
Those former presidents who complied became statesmen and enjoyed massive respect even from sworn critics whereas those who opted to disobey the rule are often vilified, hated and in extreme cases locked up for desiring to hang onto power.
Botswana’s 4th president who retired after serving the mandatory two terms has opted to be the first in the history of the country to defile the rule with discomfiting consequences of a methodical approach to the administration of the country.
After the daily grind of taking hard and often unpopular decisions, it was expected that the former president would opt for a quiet pastime to help him resist the temptation to compare his past world with the successor’s present world and develop the desire to influence public policy and/or directly run the show from his retirement home.
Former presidents who have sought to remain influential in the business of government have found the transition from being commander-in-chief to a pensioner very difficult and painful mainly because, as former US President John Quincy Adams puts it, the glamour and thrill of old life always beckon.
Thus, the desire to pursue a personal agenda or to remain an integral part of the nation’s business often compels many former presidents to remain in public view with the risk of tarnishing their reputations. It is probably a truism that some former presidents cannot resist the urge to indulge in active party politics because they cannot stop being politicians.
That is understandable and acceptable but only to the extent that their politics advance national interests. Anything else is bound to provoke murmurs of disapproval and even have one designated as an enemy of the state.
Former president Dr Khama’s desire to remain in the spotlight and enjoy power concomitant to the office of the president has proved so overwhelming that he no doubt is the elephant in the room. He is Botswana’s biggest threat.
Dr Khama’s language and deeds are not what you would expect from a former president. His language is just careless and reckless and his deeds borders on the work of an arch conspirator and proud traitor.
His behaviour towards his successor and government of the day put him in something of a different category. Whereas his remarks are hard evidence of a former president who has become irrelevant, his determination to hurt the fortunes of the country is not just infantile hyperbole.
Rather, his activities are a clear and present danger of harm to national interests and this is why he is more deadly than those who snoop from a distance. The former president has morphed into a traitor in our midst and a formidable threat to our stability and prosperity.
Logic would dictate that as a former president who enjoyed considerable public goodwill throughout his tenure, Dr Khama should at all times put the country above petty issues. Instead, his behaviour points to a disgraced strongman whose fame was arranged like a house of cards.
Many times we have been warned that Dr Khama cannot be trusted to do anything beneficial to the country unless he stood to personally benefit exponentially. By his own actions, he has given us every reason to regret not listening to the warnings and perhaps every reason to question his belonging in Botswana.
While still reeling from his lethal presidency, Botswana has again become a target of his attempts to destroy it all over again hence he is the deadliest enemy to this country.
He has repackaged his arsenal and has spanned all conciliatory initiatives to achieve his goal to return to power at any cost or make the country ungovernable and ultimately a failed a state if he cannot get what he wants. His actions make him an ungrateful traitor and a political chameleon that changes allegiance whenever he believes it to be most politically advantageous
Former president Dr Khama has vowed to wage war against the incumbent president and by extension the Botswana nation until he gets what he wants. He has vowed to lobby the international community, which is always prompt to believe and broadcast repugnant stories and lies about Africans and Black people generally, to revolt against the current government.
And herein lies the danger ÔÇô unlike the isolated armchair conservationists cum-racists making sporadic noise that has low impact, Dr Khama is lobbying powerful animal rights groups using his prestigious position as Distinguished Fellow of Conservational International. Through his coordinated lobby action, Dr Khama is actually pushing Botswana towards a fate worse than death.
As a result of his aggressive, toxic crusade against the country, some incorrigible racists dressed up as conservationists fighting for animal rights have called for the international community to boycott Botswana’s tourism and diamonds- the country’s biggest revenue earners.
The law of treason is generally anchored on the principal features of among others, giving aid and comfort to enemies wherein the word enemies apply to the subjects of foreign powers (as in the international community represented by conservationists who are hostile to Botswana’s decision to lift a ban on hunting). Giving aid to enemies would constitute acts of strengthening the enemy in a variety of ways.
In this context, former president Dr Khama does aid and assist Botswana’s enemies by furnishing them with classified information that came into his possession as the president of the Republic of Botswana.
By lobbying the international community to boycott Botswana’s key export commodities and by engaging in a traitorous interaction with them, Dr Khama is actually in conspiracy for he is most probably providing them with intelligence in their act of hostility.
By encouraging and aiding these racists disguised as conservationists in their act of hostility against Botswana and precisely for harming Botswana’s interests, Dr Khama is an enemy within and is clearly guilty of treason.
