09 Mar 2015

Mr Klaas Motshidisi, who died on March 2 at Bokamoso Private Hospital, will be buried in Palapye on March 14.

Born at Maroku ward in Serowe in 1932, Mr Motshidisi was Palapye Customary Court headman of records at the time of his death, a position he held for eight years. Klaas, as many preferred to call him, started his primary education at the age of 13 at Central Primary School in Palapye.

He also completed some correspondence courses with South African institutions before earning his Bachelor of Arts in the Soviet Union. Prior to joining tribal administration, Mr Motshidisi was an active politician, having begun his career while working at Palapye garage, as a pioneer nationalist politician, labour organiser and human rights activist.

Along with Kgalemang Motsete and Phillip Matante, he founded the country’s first political party, Bechuanaland/Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) in 1961, becoming an executive committee member.

Following the party’s 1962 split, Mr Motshidisi emerged as the Mpho Motsamai led BPP faction secretary general and subsequently contested the first, March 1, 1965, general election as the Botswana Independence Party (BIP) candidate.

One of the politicians at the time, Mr Michael Dingake has fond memories of Mr Motshidisi as both were members of the BPP. Mr Dingake, who is also former Botswana Congress Party leader, narrated in an interview that after the split, together with Klaas and other members, joined the Mpho Motsamai led BIP.

He said in the 1965 general elections, Mr Motshidisi Klaas contested against Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and the country’s first president the late Sir Seretse Khama.

Mr Dingake added that Klaas also played a crucial role in the South African liberation struggle, noting that at some point he, along with Motsamai Mpho, helped in the release of ANC’s Thabo Mbeki and other struggle refugees who were being deported by train from Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) to South Africa.

Furthermore, Mr Dingake indicated that Mr Motshidisi informed the then high commissioner to Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, Sir John Maud, that Mr Mbeki and other refugees could not return to South Africa fearing that the apartheid regime would kill them.

Mr Dingake, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela at Robben Island, said there was an ongoing project aimed at writing the history of Batswana who contributed to the liberation struggle.

The project, he said, was spearheaded by South Africa’s Our Liberation Heritage Society and would be working with Botswana Museum, Botswana Archives, Botswana Tourism Organisation, UB History lecturers and South Africa’s Ex Combatants Association.

He added that there was a video on the subject that the late Klaas was part of. Meanwhile, after serving in the BIP, Klaas would subsequently find his long term political home in the Botswana National Front (BNF).

Government spokesperson, Dr Jeff Ramsay, said it was also in the early 1960s that Mr Motshidisi first became involved in trade unionism as secretary general of the short lived Bechuanaland Trade Union Congress.

After independence, said Dr Ramsay, Klaas joined the civil service for some years, becoming the commissioner of labour, where he earned recognition for his fairness and devotion to duty.
Subsequently, Klass would return to politics in the 1990s and in 1994, he unsuccessfully stood for elections as the BNF candidate for Palapye where he lost to the BDP’s Dr Festus Mogae.

During BNF infightings in the late 1990’s, Klaas supported the late Dr Kenneth Koma and the subsequent leadership of Otsweletse Moupo, serving in the 2001-04 executive committee.
Christian Makgala (2003) in his article entitled “An Appraisal of Dr Ng’ombe’s 1998 prophecy on the fate of the BNF” indicates that in January 1998, the late Klaas, Mareledi Giddie and three other members of the ‘Concerned Group’ faction, were expelled by the BNF Central Committee.

The expelled members formed what was called the Concerned Group which went around the country addressing parallel rallies with the BNF. With no reconciliation in sight, the conflict led to the birth of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) with Michael Dingake as the leader. ENDS