23 Mar 2022

Chobe District must become tribal land. That must come with a new name.

Parakarungu resident Mr Kamwi Masule, who spoke on behalf of residents of Parakarungu said this during a kgotla meeting addressed by the Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Review of the Constitution in Parakarungu yesterday.

“We want the constitution to recognise Chobe district as tribal land rather than state land. We would also like the name of the district to be changed from Chobe to Itenge District,” he submitted. Itenge is the name that was given to baSubiya kingdom.

Changing the district status from state land to tribal land according to Mr Masule, would help ease movement of people, which he said was currently curtailed aby regulations governing Chobe National Park.

He argued that whereas Batswana in other districts enjoyed unfettered movement, Chobe District residents were forced to observe the law’s stringent dusk to dawn curfews on a daily basis.

“We want free movement through Chobe National Park to go to either to Kasane or Maun,” he  said.

He also proposed there should be a ministry of dikgosi and culture whose minister should be a kgosi.

Mr Masule also said Parakarungu wanted Ntlo ya dikgosi transformed into a House of Representatives.

On protection from being deprived of property, Mr Masule proposed that once allocated land, the owner should have absolute control of it, and not be constrained by government policies as to when to carry out developments on it.

“It should be entirely upon such a person to develop the plot at their own pace and time,” he argued.

For her part, Ms Namvula Wasimona who represented Satau residents called for the amendment of Section 78 of the constitution to ensure there was equal status as well as harmonious co-existence of merafe.

There was also need, she said, for land board members to be elected by merafe at their respective dikgotla and not through interviews as was the case, she said.

She proposed there should be a law that would prevent the government from hiring retirees.

“We have many educated and unemployed young Batswana who can fill vacant posts at any given time. All we need to do is to have succession plans in place to make sure there is continuity once the old and experienced folks exit the system,” she said.

Ms Wasimona was also against presidential immunity.

The law, she said, must provide for prosecution of a sitting president if found to be on the wrong side of the law.

One of the elders of Parakarungu, Mr Johnson Mabuta expressed his misgivings about the use of only Setswana and English as official languages.

“Some of us do not speak Setswana, we speak Sisubiya,” he put it to the commissioners. He thus proposed that the envisaged constitution should accommodate other cultures and languages in Botswana.

Another resident Mr Benjamin Kachana stated that time had arrived for the constitution of the land to recognise and prosecute witchcraft at the kgotla.

“Batho ba a bolawa, ba a betelelwa ke baloi,” he said. He argued witches always got scott-free in spite of what he said were horrendous effects of their craft on innocent people.

It was an ironic that while the law recognised witchdoctors, it would not do the same about the art of witchcraft, he said.

Asked by Commissioner Shirley Keoagile where the evidence against the accused would come from, Mr Kachana said traditional doctors and prophets were readily available and could be used to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone was a witch.

“Go na le ba ba thaisang gore a tshwarwe. Gona le ditsela di le dintsi go tshwara baloi,” he said, meaning there were many ways of trapping and catching witches.

His brother Mr Simasiku Kachana who claimed to have fallen victim to witches in 2012 agreed that the art of witchcraft was so wicked it had to be tried at the kgotla so that victims could get justice. BOPA