“Those boys shouldn’t have been dragged to court in the first place,” retired Brigadier Iphemele ‘Ranger’ Kgokgothwane says with a frowned face. Brigadier Kgokgothwane is a former Botswana Defence Force (BDF) tough soldier who commanded a lot of both respect and fear in the army circles.
Legend has it he once disembarked from an airborne aeroplane and landed unscathed without a parachute. While it is said dogs are men’s best friends, Kgokgothwane had lions for friends. While still with the BDF, he tamed dangerous wild animals and is said to have at some point walked to an ATM with lions in tow. This is the brave man who trained many soldiers, including Gotshosamang Sechele,Ronny Matako and Boitshoko Maifala, the three men who were found guilty of Kalafatis’ murder on the 9th of June last year and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment by High Court judge Justice David Newman. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and sentences of the three men in February this year.
While Brigadier Kgokgothwane is saddened by the way Kalafatis was brutally killed, he is of the view wrong people sat in the dock. He says the soldiers, whom he frequently refers to as ‘boys’, were only doing their job.
“We train soldiers to take orders and follow the instructions to the letter,” he says. Kgokgothwane says when you issue out guns and bullets to soldiers, they are obliged to do exactly what you set them out to do with those guns. He says serious disciplinary action can be taken against soldiers who defy orders from above. His observation is, the four soldiers were in an operation that was sanctioned by their superiors and knowing how disciplined soldiers are, they accomplished the assignment that was only given to them and not orchestrated by them.
“Do you think those guys had beef with Kalafatis or even knew him personally?” he asks rhetorically.
Kgokgothwane says soldiers are trained to kill and not arrest.
“I never trained those boys to arrest. Never”, he reveals. According to Brigadier Kgokgothwane, the role of soldiers in the arrest of a suspect has boundaries. Soldiers can only accompany police officers because arresting is the duty of the police, who are trained to do so and not the soldiers. The soldiers’ role in an arrest mission is to provide security escort to the police officers just in case the suspect becomes dangerous and a threat to the lives of the arresting officers, that is, the police officers. Should the suspect take out a gun and attempt to shoot at the arresting officers that is when the soldiers can come in and return fire.
In the case of Kalafatis, there were no police officers and this begs the question: was the mission to arrest or kill Kalafatis? Police officers are trained to arrest while soldiers are trained to kill and, as such, it is not farfetched to assume by sending ‘killers’ instead of arresters, the mission was to kill Kalafatis and this is what makes Kgokgothwane believe ‘his boys’ accomplished their mission. Kgokgothwane applauds the president for setting free the three soldiers and hopes the real culprits will be brought forward to answer for the murder of Kalafatis. He says the person who sent the soldiers to kill Kalafatis should be the one facing the wrath of the law.
Brigadier Kgokgothwane says under normal circumstances, it should have been the BDF Commander who stood in the dock and not the soldiers who only serve as messengers. To prove that the soldiers killed Kalafatis in their line of duty, Kgokgothwane points out that if that was not the case then the BDF would have taken stern action against the soldiers even before the court of law interfered. He gave an example of when former BDF Commander Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe stood in the dock when BDF soldiers were accused of killing some people in Kasane.
As the commander, Merafhe was answerable to the shootings carried out by his subordinates or charges. Though he says he is not privy to the reasons that motivated the killing of Kalafatis, Kgokgothwane says the president can order the elimination of anyone he deems to be a threat to his life. In fact, according to Kgokgothwane, upon enlistment, soldiers take an oath and vow ‘to protect the president against all his enemies’. Kgokgothwane says it is worrisome that soldiers vow to protect the president and not the country against enemies. “He is the only man in the country who can sanction a war and this is not right,” observes the retired Brigadier.
It appears soldiers are divided on the issue. While some feel the soldiers were given preferential and unwarranted treatment, others feel it was the right thing to pardon and release their convicted colleagues. One soldier, who preferred anonymity, said the move was intended to resuscitate the moral amongst soldiers as now the soldiers were reluctant to take orders from their supervisors for fear of going through the agony that Kalafatis killers endured. This brings the question: is it normal practice for soldiers to be sent out to kill civilians if we are to believe soldiers are now reluctant to carryout instructions from their bosses? Was this not an isolated incident? If indeed the move to release the convicted soldiers was meant to restore the morale of soldiers, does it not now demoralise the judiciary? By going against the dictates of High Court judgements, isn’t the Executive undermining the Judiciary? One lawyer observes that while the move is politically wrong, it is legally permissible as the Constitution gives the president those unfettered powers.
Soldiers interviewed also gave conflicting answers as to what they promise in their oath when they enlist in the army. Some of them said they vow to uphold the sanctity of the constitution and protect the lives of the citizens and the country from its enemies. Some of them say they are asked if they would be ready to kill a member of their family if such a member posed threat to national security and they have to answer in the affirmative to get employed in the army.
However, one of the soldiers differed with Brigadier Kgokgothwane on the oath taken by soldiers. He says they undertake to protect the citizens of the country from enemies and this automatically includes the president and does not mean they exist only for the president’s sole safety. He says Kgokgothwane must have confused an oath taken by the VIP Protection Unit with that one taken by all other army officials. He agrees that there is an oath that states the soldiers will protect the president from his enemies but it is only limited to those who work under the presidential escort unit. He says the soldiers assigned under the presidential escort are expected to take the bullet for the president and kill for the president’s safety.
“You can suffer severe consequences if the president or any VIP under your escort gets killed and it is established you had ran away during the attack,” said the soldier. He says they are expected to become ‘human shields’ to those under their protection.
The release of the three soldiers has not escaped conspiracy theories from the general public. Social network sites became viral with the topic as people expressed various views on the issue. Rumours and speculations are rife as to the real motive behind the presidential pardon. And since the president is not obliged to divulge his reasons to the public, it seems there will never be an end to the speculations. Some are of the view the president pardoned the convicts as he felt bad that they went to prison for carrying out instructions that had his blessings or even came from him personally.
They argue that it has always been clear from the onset the soldiers would eventually be freed. Their observation derives from the fact their employer, the BDF, hired lawyers and paid for their legal costs even as they were facing murder charges. The BDF even vowed to stand by them and support their families while they were in jail. This, according some observers, clearly showed that the soldiers were sent out on a mission and they accomplished it. The BDF had to stand by them because it had sent them and the killing wasn’t extra-judicial.
It is rumoured the late John Kalafatis was not a threat to national security but was a threat to the security of Khama’s family. Gossipmongers say Kalafatis had romantic ties with one of the Khama family members and he had started terrorising her and this angered President Khama. Others say Kalafatis had broken into the house of one of Khama’s friends and robbed him. The fearless ones allege Kalafatis had once caught President Khama in an ‘uncompromising’ position with someone when he broke into the house, not to peep on them but rather to steal from the house. Some say Kalafatis was terrorising people and raped women and as such he was killed just as was Sipho Sithole who terrorised people and ended up being gunned down by soldiers on instructions from higher authorities.
For now, it seems, we will only have speculations on what crimes Kalafatis committed and why he had to be eliminated so brutally when it appears he posed no threat to the soldiers who rained bullets on him. We will also have to remain speculating on why the president found it wise to release his killers so early into their incarceration. It’s times like these you would wish the Biblical resurrection of the death would become a reality because only then would we get hints from John Kalafatis on what exactly he did to attract the avenging force of the military.
