African Cultures

I ran across this about the Bushmen in Botswana...don't know if it's accurate (I worked in eastern Zim). But for your perusal:


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my only question is: Why all these white people (the fat white lady I'm watching right now has a US accent) telling us all about these people and how they want to live a hard life so beloved of rich westerners.

Botswana film: Lady's detective agency

awhile back I noted that they were filming the best selling book the Lady's number one detective agency....but I never found out more.

Now I find it was shown on HBO (We get HBO Asia, but don't get to see a lot of their series shows: either they don't show them, or they are on late at night when I don't watch TV).

But anyway, here is a video that HBO put on youtube about Botswana:



makes me sad...Zimbabwe could have been another South Africa or Botswana, a multiracial country that works, except for Mugabe's greed.

Botswana Zim talk on lost animal rangers

from AFP:

HARARE — Zimbabwe and Botswana officials are to meet this week to resolve a diplomatic stand-off over the detention of three Botswanan game rangers who strayed across the border, state media reported on Sunday....

The three wildlife officers were arrested and detained after mistakenly entering Zimbabwe while tracking animals.

Botswana said several efforts to resolve the matter, including an attempt by Vice President Mompati Merafhe to meet President Robert Mugabe at a recent African Union meeting, had failed....

Botswana suggests sanctions

from SWRadioAfrica


One of Robert Mugabe’s fiercest critics, the Botswana Foreign Minister, on Wednesday launched a stinging attack on the ZANU PF leader, suggesting that the Southern African region should close its borders in an attempt to bring him down.
.... Skelemani said leaders should tell him to his face ‘look, now you are on your own, we are switching off, we are closing your borders.' He added that if no petrol went into Zimbabwe for a week, Mugabe would be gone.

Leaders from Botswana and Zambia have been lonely voices in the region against Mugabe’s regime and Botswana's President Ian Khama, has emerged as one of Mugabe's harshest critics in Africa. The regime has hit back at Botswana, accusing Khama of interference and of training MDC insurgents to destabilise Zimbabwe. A claim strongly denied by Botswana.

Skelemani also said his country would be willing to shelter Tsvangirai, if he ever asked for protection.

Influx of Zim refugees affects Botswana's economy

from the Zimbabwean

...

HARARE, November 13 2008 - Botswana says Zimbabwe’s political crisis is weighing down on its economy as it is spending close to 1,2 million Pulas on Zimbabwean refugees every month, RadioVOP can reveal.

A document compiled by the Botswana government on the refugee situation and seen by RadioVOP, quotes vice president Lieutenant General Mompati Merafe as having said that the political stalemate in Zimbabwe had led to increasing numbers of Zimbabweans seeking refuge in that country and was weighing down on its economy.

He indicated that starting 2005, Zimbabweans numbering 175 000 had been deported from that country and that Botswana had since constructed shelters to accommodate Zimbabwean refugees at the cost of 52 million Pulas.

He noted that since January this year, more than 12 000 Zimbabweans had been involved in crime in that country....

Botswana denies training youth militias

from the Zim Times:

GABORONE - Zimbabwe’s neighbour, Botswana, has vehemently denied accusations by officials in Harare that Botswana was training MDC youths for purposes of effecting regime change in Zimbabwe...

Opposition says Mugabe can't form government alone

AP via the IntHTrib

...

Thokozani Khupe, vice president of the Movement for Democratic Change, told reporters that if Mugabe unilaterally formed a new government, the opposition would not be part of it.

The opposition would "peacefully, constitutionally and democratically mobilize and campaign against the illegitimate government," the party said in a statement.

Southern African leaders had called on Zimbabwe's politicians to form a unity government quickly and suggested that the opposition share control of the police ministry with Mugabe's party, a recommendation the opposition rejects....

However, some observers fear that Zimbabwe's leader of 28 years will not make any real concessions to the opposition as it has been nearly two months now since the power-sharing agreement was signed. Last month Mugabe claimed control of the police ministry when he unilaterally published a Cabinet list.

Neighboring Botswana also rejected the ministry sharing proposal. Botswana's Foreign Affairs Minister Phandu Skelemani, told his parliament Thursday that such an arrangement was "unrealistic, impractical and unworkable."

Botswana has been one of the few countries that have criticized African leaders for not putting enough pressure on Mugabe to share power with the opposition....

Botswana risks diplomatic ties

from Kenya's daily Nation

The deadlock in the Zimbabwe power-sharing deal is threatening to revive the messy diplomatic confrontation between Zimbabwe and its diamond-rich neighbour, Botswana.

After leading the onslaught against the ZANU-PF government of President Robert Mugabe, Botswana has once again become the first southern African country to speak about the current crisis in Zimbabwe caused by the deadlock over sharing cabinet posts. ...

Last Friday, Botswana president Ian Khama fired a thinly veiled broadside at ZANU-PF for causing the current impasse in Zimbabwe.

....

Before Mbeki brokered a power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe, Botswana tough stance against the regime was becoming a messy diplomatic headache that threatened to suck in other countries in the region....

In Zimbabwe Talks, who will get the real power?

NYTimes analysis

note the new players in the field: especially Botswana.,..excerpts..

....One of the most remarkable changes to emerge from Zimbabwe’s violent election season is that leaders in Zambia and Botswana have resoundingly broken the silence of Mr. Mugabe’s peers in the region about the human rights abuses committed by his governing party....

With rumors swirling that Mr. Mugabe, 84, and Mr. Tsvangirai, 56, are close to a deal in talks that are supposed to last only two weeks, Ms. Khupe, a member of Parliament from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, said she had not been informed yet about the progress of the negotiations. But she noted that any agreement from the talks, which are being held at a secret location in Pretoria, would have to be approved by the party’s leadership.

....Shadowing the current talks is the memory of an earlier set of unity negotiations. In 1987, after years in which historians estimated that Mr. Mugabe’s military forces killed at least 10,000 civilians in the stronghold of his rival Joshua Nkomo, Mr. Nkomo joined the government, allowing Mr. Mugabe to further solidify his hold on power.

The current talks, too, were preceded by a violent onslaught....

The accounts its election observers brought back from Zimbabwe deepened Botswana’s official revulsion. Ruth Seretse, the deputy director of Botswana’s directorate on corruption and economic crime, led the 50-person observer team. She said in an interview that she had seen ZANU-PF youth militia members beating people at a rally for Mr. Tsvangirai in Harare.

“People ran for their lives,” she said. “The riot police just stood there.” .....