SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN LESOTHO

SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN LESOTHO Volume 15, Number 3 (Third Quarter 2008) Dolen Cymru, the Wales Lesotho Link, Expands its Activities and Hosts Major Conference Lesotho and Wales have a surprising number of similarities, amongst them mountains, love of song, pony trekking tourists, a mining history, English as a second language, export of water to a larger neighbouring country, and the sound hl (ll in Welsh). They have also been linked for over 20 years by the organization Dolen Cymru or ‘Welsh Link’. Dolen Cymru has sponsored many activities jointly with Lesotho, and even produced in 1993 a guide book to Lesotho in Welsh, Lesotho: y Wlad a’i Phobl, which at the time of publication had better up-to-date coverage than any guidebook in English. It was, however, rather impenetrable for anyone not knowing Welsh, with for example the map of the country showing the Central Range as Mynyddoeddy Canoldir while the Lesotho Bank headquarters on the Maseru map rejoiced under the name, deiladau’r Llywodraeth a Banc Lesotho. Moshoeshoe Road was at least half recognizable as Ffordd Moshoeshoe. More recently Dolen Cymru has supported production of teaching materials on Lesotho for Welsh schools using elaborately reproduced maps, photographs and supporting materials in Welsh and English. As reported in the Spring 2008 issue of the organization’s twice yearly newsletter (also called Dolen Cymru), Dolen Cymru has recently been able to expand, thanks to support from the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG). Two full-time WAGsupported posts have recently been filled, Sarah Jones as Development Coordinator, and Betsan Ifan as Education Officer. The same issue also contains accounts of Welsh personnel who have visited Lesotho supporting the Lesotho Flying Doctor Service, the Lesotho Society for Mentally Handicapped Persons, Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, and as primary school teachers. In relation to the last of these, the Lesotho Teacher Placement Programme is in its third successful year with 9 teachers in Mohale’s Hoek and Mafeteng. The Welsh Minister for Education, Children, Lifelong Learning and Skills, Jane Hutt, recently announced that her department would be funding the programme for a further three years. Prince Harry, no stranger to Lesotho, is Patron of Dolen Cymru, and he was recently also present at an International Lesotho Conference held 5-6 June 2008 at the Wales Millennium Stadium with the theme ‘Making the Connections and Improving Life Chances’. Also present at the conference were the Lesotho High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Prince Seeiso Seeiso; the Lesotho Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, the Hon. Mohlabi Kenneth Tsekoa; the Chair of Dolen Cymru, Wayne Crocker; and numerous persons from Lesotho or linked in some way with Lesotho. Half way through the conference on the evening of 5 June, the First Minister of Wales, the Rt Hon. Rhodri Morgan jointly hosted a reception with Lesotho’s Foreign Minister at the National Museum of Wales, where appropriately there was also a special Basotho Tapestry Exhibition. Taxi Strike Called Off The four-day taxi strike which was occurring at the very end of the last quarter, was called off after twodays on Tuesday 1 July 2008. Government and taxi owners agreed that their dispute would be referred to an agreed independent arbitrator. The dispute related to the government ‘camel’ buses which the taxi owners maintained should not run in competition with privately owned taxis. A second issue was that fares should rise to allow for fuel price increases. During the strike, large numbers of people had to walk to work and to walk home, the small number of government buses being totally inadequate for their needs. It was later announced that Roman Catholic Bishop Paul Khoarai had been appointed as the independent arbitrator. Boys Overtake Girls in Primary Education A recently issued report of the Bureau of Statistics (no. 7 of 2008) contains statistics of primary school enrolment for the period 2000 to 2006. These show that in 2004 boys, for the first time for nearly a century, outnumbered girls in primary schools. 100 years earlier we have figures from the 1904 census, which showed primary school attendance in the April 1904 census week as 10 485 pupils (5 864 boys and 4 801 girls). The girls soon caught up with the boys and by the 1921 census female literacy was higher than that of males throughout Lesotho in every district except Butha-Buthe and Mokhotlong. In 1904 the population of Lesotho was enumerated as 347 731 persons, and it is now about 5.5 times as large, while the primary school population is now about 425 000 some 40 times as large. The actual figure of primary school enrolments for 2004 was 214 762 boys and 212 247 girls. The numbers of girls, however, still exceeded that of boys in the three uppermost primary classes, Standards 5, 6 and 7, and this continued to be the case throughout 2005 and 2006. The sexual imbalance in primary schools in the past was largely caused by boys being required for herding duties in the absence of men who were migrant workers in South Africa. Migrant work opportunities in South Africa are now very much reduced (less than half as many as 20 years ago), and there is the added problem that cattle theft is rampant with robbers using firearms against which school age boys cannot defend themselves. Consequently cattle herding is now again largely an adult male occupation. Moreover, the existence of free primary school education including a daily meal provides a considerable incentive for all children to attend school. The education statistics show that much has been done to improve the quality of primary education. However, only 48.7% of primary school pupils had desks in 2006. A further 30.1% had some kind of seats, often mud benches, while 21.2% had no seats at all, and presumably had to be taught sitting on the ground. The percentage of qualified primary teachers has dropped in recent years, because insufficient new teachers are trained. In 2006, only 58.8% of primary school teachers had been trained. In Quthing, Qacha’s Nek, Thaba-Tseka and Mokhotlong Districts more than half of the teachers were untrained. It is known from visits to schools that those who are untrained are often very untrained in the sense that they do not have sufficient academic qualifications to enter the Lesotho College of Education. For example, unqualified teachers often have only a poor Junior Certificate whereas a Cambridge Overseas School Certificate with four credits and a pass in English is the normal entrance qualification for LCE entry. At secondary school level girls are still very much in the majority at every level and the proportion of girls in secondary education dropped only marginally from 56.8% in 2000 to 56.0% in 2006. Because of the proliferation of secondary schools, the pupil/teacher ratio in secondary schools was 25.7 in 2006 compared with 40.8 in primary schools. The primary school figure is distorted because in many mountain schools there is a required minimum of two teachers even when, as is often the case, the number of pupils is very low. In the Lowlands, classes in excess of 70 pupils are not unusual. 72.2% of secondary teachers were qualified in 2006, a better figure than for primary schools, but this disguises the fact that there are very severe shortages of mathematics and science teachers. When a school report is brought home, even in the upper two forms known as ‘high school’, parents often search in vain for the mathematics mark. Why no mathematics mark? There is no mathematics mark because mathematics was not taught in the previous term because there was no teacher! As in the case of nurses, the shortage of mathematics and science teachers is a national emergency, the more so because the failure to teach these subjects to a reasonable level has the result that there are very few school leavers with the necessary qualifications to enter nursing training, let alone training to become a teacher of mathematics or science. Drugs of Abuse Act 2008 Gazetted The Drugs of Abuse Act 2008 was gazetted in a Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary of 27 May 2008. It repeals the Dangerous Medicines Act 1973 and makes provision for a Lesotho Narcotics Bureau, a multi-sectoral body to advise Ministers on policy development and implementation with regard to illicit drugs and drug traffickers; and to coordinate drug abuse-related activities by government and non-governmental organizations. It also has provisions for penalties for drug users and unlicensed users of drug-manufacturing equipment. The Act is timely in that Lesotho has increasingly become a place of transit for drugs from overseas, and in addition drug use by young people has become disturbingly more prevalent. Drugs are classified in the Act according to three schedules which list ‘prohibited drugs of abuse’ (amongst these is cannabis), ‘high risk drugs of abuse’ (which include morphine), and ‘risk drugs of use’ (which include, for example, tranquillizers such as diazepam). The new Act occupies more than 100 pages of the Lesotho Government Gazette and has complex procedures for licensing users and transporters of drugs, although pharmacists, doctors, veterinary surgeons and dentists have a general permission to use drugs of abuse for genuine medical purposes. Dagga or cannabis is the most commonly available drug in Lesotho and there are severe penalties for acquiring or cultivating it, namely imprisonment for not less than 5 years or a fine of not less than M20 000 or both. The Act does however provide for some alternative penalties including ‘house arrest, or other deprivation or restriction of liberty for the term prescribed instead of imprisonment’. Other alternatives are set out at length and include community service, periodic detention, and suspension of passport or driving licence. The court can also order that a convicted person, in addition to any other penalty, be made subject to a treatment order under the supervision of a psychiatrist. A number of remote areas of Lesotho owe their prosperity to the cultivation and export of dagga. They are areas in general without roads and police posts. Dagga farmers will not be aware of the Act unless it is translated into Sesotho and distributed in their areas. At the moment the Act is dormant until the Minister responsible for health brings it into force by notice in the Gazette. New Chairman of Independent Electoral Commission Appointed A Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary of 6 June 2008 announced that Ms Limakatso Mokhothu has been appointed the new Chairman of the Lesotho Independent Electoral Commission. She was first appointed to the Commission in 2003, and replaces as Chairman, Mr Abel Leshele Thoahlane, who officially retired from his position on 20 May 2008, having held the position since the year 2000. A further Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary of 6 June 2008 announced that Dr Fako Johnson Likoti has also been appointed a member of the IEC for a period of five years. Dr Likoti, a former policeman who later entered academia, has advanced degrees from the Universities of Reading, Cape Town and Western Cape and has most recently been a Lecturer in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at the National University of Lesotho. -4Retirement of Justice Baptista Molai As announced in the Lesotho Government Gazette of 13 June 2008, Justice Baptista Kopang Molai retired as a Justice of the High Court of Lesotho with effect from 25 June 2008. During his long period as a judge, Justice Molai is perhaps best remembered for setting a world record for the longest ever criminal trial, namely the trial of 31 policeman arising from the police rebellion in February 1997. The case against the defendants had originally been opened on 24 November 1997 and subsequently been set down to last from 9 to 27 February 1998. In the event judgment was not given until 28 July 2000, making a trial of total length 890 days inclusive, although actual sittings may have been held on only about half this number of days. Nevertheless the trial appeared to have set a world record for a criminal trial. (According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s longest criminal trial lasted from 30 November 1992 to 29 November 1994 in Hong Kong. The High Court then sat for 398 days to hear charges against 14 South Vietnamese boat people accused of murdering 24 North Vietnamese adults and children who died in a blazing hut during a riot at a refugee camp in Hong Kong in February 1992. The defendants were eventually acquitted, although some were convicted on lesser charges.) In the case of the Lesotho trial, 5 of the 31 defendants were acquitted, and the remainder were found not guilty of high treason, but were convicted on other charges and given sentences of up to three years imprisonment. On his retirement from the judiciary, Justice Molai, who is 73, was appointed a member of the Judicial Service Commission with effect from 26 June 2008. African Peer Review Mechanism Assessment Underway A process which has already been underway for some time is explained in a Government Notice (No. 194 of 2008) in Lesotho Government Gazette, no. 44 of 2008 (20 June 2008). This is the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) devised by the African Union, and to which Lesotho acceded on 4 July 2004. The APRM process assesses each country in four areas, namely political and democratic governance; economic governance and management; corporate governance; and socioeconomic development. In order to implement the APRM, Lesotho has set up a National Governing Council (NGC) of 14 members, six of whom form the Executive Committee with Mrs ’Mamosebi Pholo as Chairperson. The NGC’s members have been chosen to be representative of a wide range of different interests, and they are supported by a Secretariat of four senior persons. There is also a Cabinet sub-committee of 6 members established to oversee the process and to ensure the NGC has the necessary technical and financial assistance. As stated in the Notice, the purpose of the APRM is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, good governance, high economic growth, sustainable development, and accelerated regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcements of successful and best practices, including identifying deficiencies and accessing the needs for capacity building. This statement of purpose is followed by a list of 14 specific laudable objectives, which range from preventing and reducing intra and inter-country conflicts to encouraging broad-based participation in development by all stakeholders. The NGC’s role includes sensitizing the nation by holding public gatherings in the ten district of Lesotho, by radio and television programmes, workshops and through newspapers. It is supported in its research role by a consortium of the National University of Lesotho’s Institute of Southern African Studies and the Lesotho Institute of Public Administration and Management. The consortium is mandated to make its research countrywide. While the APRM is a praiseworthy attempt to improve the governance of African states, its adoption is a voluntary action by each state. As a result those states, including rogue states such as Zimbabwe, who might benefit from the process (if indeed it could be carried out there), exclude themselves. Caledon/Mohokare River has Earlier (?) Name Phuthi Restored The river which forms part of Lesotho’s modern western boundary must once have had a San name, but this is apparently lost for ever. It was named as the Wilhemina after a member of the Dutch Royal House by Robert Jacob Gordon (1743-95), a Dutch soldier of Scottish descent who travelled in 1777 to the confluence of the river with the Gariep (Senqu/Orange). It was renamed the Caledon by Colonel R. Collins in 1809, after the Earl of Caledon, Governor of the Cape, 1807-11. The missionaries who arrived in the 1830s found that the river was known as Mohokare to the Basotho and they used this name on some of their maps. The name apparently comes from mogokare the name in Northern Sotho dialects for the indigenous willow, which formerly clothed the banks of the river. There was later a popular folk etymology which regarded this name as a corruption of mo ka hare, ‘the one in the middle’, because the river ran through the middle of Lesotho before it lost the Conquered Territory in wars with the Free State. In the mid-1990s, amongst those employed on the Water Resources Management: Policy & Strategies Project were Emmanuel Manong Lesoma and David Ambrose. The latter had an interest in the origin of place names, and had long puzzled over the name Phuthiatsana which is the name of two major tributaries of the Mohokare. The French missionaries had also puzzled over the name in relation to the southern tributary, and had suggested possible origins relating it to gathering up the waters of its catchment (ho phutha to gather) or perhaps its having been a place where the grysbok (phuthi) was common. However, the fact that phuthiatsana is a diminutive of phuthi and there are two such rivers, suggested an alternative explanation, namely that the larger river of which they are both tributaries must have been called the Phuthi. This was only a hypothesis, but it fitted in well with the known oral history and archaeological evidence, which points to Sesotho-speaking people having first arrived in the Mohokare valley about 1640, at which time they found it already occupied by the Baphuthi. It would have been natural to refer to the river in Sesotho as Noka ea Baphuthi or Noka ea Phuthi (‘the Phuthi river’), which would shorten to just Phuthi. More than a decade has passed and Manong Lesoma is now the Director of Water Affairs, and at a recent workshop involving water personnel he mentioned Ambrose’s idea as if it was a fact. This has apparently spread the word that the Mohokare is really the Phuthi. The Water & Sewerage Authority Annual Report 2006/7, recently published, mentions the ‘Phuthi (formerly Caledon) river’, with several other later unqualified mentions of the Phuthi river in the text. There is no Place Names Commission in Lesotho nor any real mechanism for creating or changing place names except by common consent. It will be interesting to know whether the presumably resurrected Phuthi name survives a second time round. Lesotho’s National Symbols Highlighted in New Book Scott Rosenberg served as Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho from 1989 to 1992. Like a number of others who have worked in Lesotho he developed an interest in the country’s history, and in 1998 he was awarded a PhD by the Indiana University Department of History based in part on a thesis entitled Promises of Moshoeshoe: culture, nationalism and identity in Lesotho, 1902-1966. This thesis has now been published as a book (vi + 269pp., ISBN 99911-31-47-7) by the National University of Lesotho Institute of Southern African Studies. The book explores the development of national identity within the colonial period, noting the centrality of Moshoeshoe as a national symbol. It provides an account of institutions which contributed towards national identity including the Basutoland National Council, the Basutoland Progressive Association and the Lekhotla la Bafo. The newly formed political parties of the pre-Independence era also provided a forum for political voices expressing nationalism. A chapter is devoted to ways in which Moshoeshoe is remembered including the national shrine of Thaba-Bosiu, often used as a political rallying point. There is also a discussion of Thota-ea-Moli (also known as Thoteng-ea-Moli), approximately half way between Maseru and Matsieng, as a traditional pitso ground. It is suggested that ‘in an attempt to justify the use of Thota-ea-Moli, the colonial structure ‘invented’ the myth that Thota-ea-Moli had once been Moshoeshoe’s pitso ground’. [However, no evidence is provided that the colonial authorities did this. Rather the preamble to the Constitution of Lekhotla la Bafo [c.1910] might have been quoted, which does associate Moshoeshoe with ‘Thuta-Ea-Moli’. The error thus seems rather to have been that of Lekhotla la Bafo’s leader, Josiel Lefela who, living at Mapoteng, would probably not have consulted anyone living near Thota-ea-Moli [=Thoteng-ea-Moli] before writing the preamble.] A discussion of Moshoeshoe Day [first celebrated in 1920, although the thesis is not that specific] is provided, with particular reference to the pitso held by the colonial administration at Thoteng-ea-Moli in 1957 (Lekhotla la Bafo held a rival meeting at Thaba-Bosiu). Moshoeshoe Day, then 12 March, was the occasion for the Royal Visit in 1947 and for the Installation of Bereng Seeiso (later King Moshoeshoe II) as Paramount Chief in 1960. It is noted that the many events (school choir competitions, sports, dancing etc) commemorating Moshoeshoe Day were also celebrated by Basotho living in South Africa. The role of the crocodile as a national symbol is explained, together with its place on the national coat of arms. (Originally Moshoeshoe was placed there with a crocodile beneath, but this -although it appeared on the Independence programmes - had to be modified because heraldic principles do not allow a man as a heraldic symbol; Moshoeshoe was replaced by the crocodile.) The longest chapter is devoted to ‘Clothing as representations of Moshoeshoe’. It contains an extensive account of the evolution of the Basotho hat, including the events which led to its being incorporated onto the national flag in 1966. The flag was designed by a Maseru architect, Peter Hancock, although it was the Cabinet that decided on a white hat so that the national flag coincided with the ruling Basotho National party colours. The other item of clothing discussed together with its evolution is the Basotho blanket. In another chapter, the writer discusses how cultural identity is transmitted through the educational process. The chapter also explains the position of minorities such as the Baphuthi, Batlokoa and Bathepu [Abathembu]. Of these the Thembu have most preserved a separate cultural identity, expressed through a separate language, separate clothing and practices such as amputation of terminalphalanges of certain fingers [although in fact only certain Thembu clans practice this]. The book is based on a number of published records, but as the endnotes to each chapter show it is also very largely based on information derived from 112 interviews with informants in many parts of Lesotho. The book is enlivened by numerous illustrations, but the quality of reproduction is variable. Although it is not customary for an academic thesis to have an index, when it appears in book form, this should be provided. There is no index in this case. Scott Rosenberg has maintained his connection with Lesotho. He is now Associate Professor of African History at Wittenberg University in Ohio in the USA. In a number of years recently, he has brought groups of his students to Lesotho, where their programme has always included practical participation in development projects alongside Basotho. MFP Challenge to PR Distribution Dismissed by High Court There has been a long running court case brought by the Marematlou Freedom Party, one of the parties which lost proportional representation seats as a result of the exploitation of loopholes in the electoral law by two other parties. Judgment was given on 2 July 2008 by Mr Justice Semapo Peete, one of a bench of three judges hearing the case. He ruled that in terms of the Constitution, such an action could only be brought by a person who is an elector and not by a political party, and that in any case the Independent Electoral Commission’s decision on the allocation of seats is final. As reported in Public Eye of 4 July 2008, the leader of the MFP, Vincent Moeketse Malebo, thanked those present in court for their support since the beginning of the case. ‘At least we have tried and shown that we are not afraid to fight for what we strongly believe in.’ Catholic Newspaper Alleges NUL is Occupying Oblate Property A story NUL, e seng ka thepa ea O.M.I. (‘NUL, but not with Oblate property’) appeared on the front page of the Catholic newspaper, Moeletsi oa Basotho of 13 July 2008, alleging that certain property on the Roma campus of the National University of Lesotho, stretching from the Mzala’s student complex to the National University of Lesotho International School and beyond, was in fact the property of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. It had not been part of the property agreed to be transferred when Pius XII College had become the University of Basutoland, Bechuanaland Protectorate & Swaziland on 1 January 1964. Although Moeletsi did not print a correction, the land had in fact been transferred by mutual agreement some three years later, as shown by annotations on the 1978 plan reproduced. As a result of new land acquired by UBBS beyond the old Pius XII College boundary, the Oblates had given up Areas C, and in return acquired Area B, today partly occupied by eight Pius XII College House student hostels, familiarly known as ‘Cheeseville’, and also (in the north of the area) by a cultivated field. An interesting feature of Area B is the panhandle. This had been insisted on by the late Father Ernest Ruch, so that Pius XII College House could have a direct outlet to the main road. This awkwardly shaped area has been all but forgotten today, but may assume some importance because of a government plan to put a housing estate north of the campus [on land which in reality should be reserved for university expansion]. If the plan goes ahead, road access will have to be by the narrow road along the university’s eastern boundary which is hemmed in without a road reserve by the informal settlements of the new village of Hata-Butle. This road can only be made into a sensible and safe width by taking university and Pius XII land, quite a controversial matter because a main sewer and some buildings are very close to the fence on the university side. A far more suitable and easily accessible area for a housing estate exists east of the campus and north of Our Lady’s House, but has so far been overlooked. Death of BCP Leader, Sekoala Toloane The Leader of the Basutoland Congress Party, Sekoala Tšephe Toloane, died in hospital in Bloemfontein on Sunday 20 July. He was 66 and had been suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes and a perforated ulcer which resulted in internal bleeding. Sekoala Toloane, born in 1942 at Ha Raboletsi in the Makhalaneng valley, had been an active member of the BCP since the 1960s. On the restoration of democracy in 1993 he was elected Member of Parliament for Makhaleng, and in July 1995 was made Minister of Health and Social Welfare. It was the time when the BCP was split into Pressure Group and Majelathoko factions, and Toloane belonged with other cabinet members to the former. Some including Toloane were expelled from Cabinet in a reshuffle on 6 May 1996, while others resigned shortly afterwards. (The expulsions, according to Ntsukunyane Mphanya in his history of the BCP were due to the influence Tom Thabane had with Ntsu Mokhehle.) When the factions were eventually irreconcilable (the Pressure Group had ensured at the Party Conference that Ntsu Mokhehle, who belonged to the other faction, should be dismissed as Party Leader), there was a schism. In June 1997, Mokhehle used his influence in Parliament to create a new party, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy, leaving the remaining BCP members including Sekoala Toloane as a parliamentary minority. In 1998 he was defeated in the Makhaleng constituency by the LCD candidate. He was later invited to become a Senator, but declined on grounds that he did not accept the 1998 election as valid. In April 1999, the BCP had its own split. Its leader, Qhobela Molapo, expelled six senior members, who subsequently became known for a while as the ‘six-pack’. They were led by Tšeliso Makhakhe and included Sekoala Toloane. The year was marked by political, physical and legal struggles between the factions, including a struggle over who should represent the party in the Interim Political Authority which was then discussing the future electoral system. The final outcome was two parties, the Basutoland Congress Party, which retained the legal right to the name, with Leader, Tšeliso Makhakhe and Deputy Leader, Sekoala Toloane; and (after a final legal battle was lost in January 2002) the Basutoland African Congress led by Molapo Qhobela. The Basutoland African Congress was the original name of the BCP before it changed its name to fight the Legislative Council elections in 1960. In the 2002 election, the BCP fared badly in the constituency poll, and Sekoala Toloane came third in the Makhaleng constituency behind the LCD and BNP candidates, with 13.62% of the vote. However, with the introduction of proportional representation, he received one of the three seats allocated to the BCP. The BAC also acquired three seats. In November 2002 at the age of 77, Tšeliso Makhakhe, the BCP leader, announced his retirement from politics, and his interest in returning to more academic pursuits. (He had once been a very successful Headmaster of Peka High School where Toloane had also been a pupil.) Sekoala Toloane then became Acting Leader and was ratified as leader at the next party conference. In the 2007 election, Sekoala Toloane did not allow his party to join the newly formed Alliance of Congress Parties. The election was a disaster for the BCP. Many of the proportional representation seats were allocated to the National Independent Party as a result of an electoral pact with the LCD, and he was left as the only remaining BCP member in the Parliament. As a result of recent parliamentary reforms, there are now a series of portfolio committees chaired by opposition members. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Economic Cluster which includes the Public Accounts Committee. Sekoala Toloane was laid to rest at his home village of Makhalaneng Ha Raboletsi on Saturday 2 August 2008. He leaves a wife, the former Palesa Mosena, three sons and six grandchildren. His replacement as the only BCP Member of Parliament is Advocate Thulo Tšoeu Mahlakeng. Harvest FM Closed Down for Three Months As reported in Lesotho Times of 24 July 2008, the controversial radio station, Harvest FM, was closed down by the Lesotho Communications Authority with effect from midnight on Tuesday 22 July for allegedly broadcasting ‘inaccurate, malicious and defamatory’ information on its popular morning show, Rise and shine. It is the first time that a radio station in Lesotho has been shut down. Other media practitioners generally condemned the move, although Harvest FM was known to have been warned repeatedly that it has been stepping out of line. Rothe By-Election Results Lead to ABC Protest The Rothe by-election, occasioned by the death of the LCD Member of Parliament, Molebatsi Makhebesela, was held on Saturday 26 July 2008. The results were due to be announced on Sunday 27 July 2008, but they were contested by the opposition All Basotho Convention who, as a result of alleged irregularities, refused to sign the final forms. As a result the official results were delayed to the following Friday. The results that the ABC were contesting gave victory to the Lesotho Congress for Democracy candidate, Mosebi Khotšeng with 2407 votes, followed by ABC candidate, Mokone Elliott Sello with 1604 votes. None of the other four candidates managed even 100 votes. They were’Malesenyeho Sehloho (Independent) with 94 votes, Moeketsi Motseko (Basotho National Party) with 56 votes, Sehloho Ishmael Sehloho (Basutoland Congress Party) with 52 votes, and Roboche Ntšasa (Independent) with 22 votes. The LCD and ABC candidates obtained respectively 56.8% and 37.9% of the votes. These were very similar to the results in the General Election of 17 February 2007, when the LCD candidate polled 55.2% of the votes, and the ABC candidate (the same Mokone Sello) polled 34.0%. The gap separating the parties narrowed only slightly from 21.2% to 18.9%. Total valid votes cast at the by-election were 4235, compared with 5317 at the General Election. Lesotho Newspaper Scene Now Increasingly Dominated by English Language Papers Ten years ago in 1998, Lesotho’s regular weekly newspapers were largely in Sesotho. They consisted then of the political party newspapers Makatolle, Mohlanka and Mololi together with the Catholic Church newspaper Moeletsi oa Basotho, the government-owned Lentsoe la Basotho and the independently owned (by Candi Ramainoane) Moafrika. The weekly English newspapers were The Mirror, Mopheme and Southern Star. The total was 6 Sesotho and 3 English newspapers and, in contrast to the present situation, none of them appeared in colour. The situation has now been more than reversed, although several of the English papers do have short Sesotho supplements, usually of 4 pages on the inside pages. In alphabetical order, the English papers today begin with Informative owned by BAM Consulting run by the three Tšita sisters. This paper has a Sesotho supplement Moitšokoli (‘The hardworking self-employed person’), and in term time has a university supplement, Varsity Breeze. As might be expected it offers a somewhat feminist perspective of the news. The newspaper does not have the page-size scantily clad pin-up of some of the other larger English-language newspapers, but does profile each week a ‘Miss Congeniality’. Next comes Lesotho Monitor owned by Dr D. R. Phororo, a veterinary surgeon, and former government minister. His copy editor sometimes lets him down, but the journalism is usually of a high standard. Lesotho Times is a relative newcomer to the scene with an impressive range of resources and staff. It is making its mark as one of the best of the weeklies for serious news, and also some regional and world news. It took over the English-language newspaper Mopheme right from the beginning, and Mopheme became a Sesotho supplement. However, Mopheme’s editor Lawrence Keketso has now broken with Lesotho Times and promises to bring out Mopheme again as a separate Englishlanguage newspaper. As a result the Sesotho supplement has now been renamed Mohale (‘The warrior’). Lesotho Today is the government English weekly, printed tête-bêche with Lentsoe la Basotho. It has a separate editor from its Sesotho companion, so the stories do not coincide. The quality of the colour photography on the front page is often very good. Maddhouse Weekly is a Ladybrand-published A4 weekly with Lesotho pages, and an increasing amount of news amongst the advertisements which otherwise dominate its pages. Maloti News is a rival and very similar newspaper from Ladybrand, whose Lesotho pages also have an increasing amount of news. Public Eye is the largest paper with several supplements (Life & Style, Wheels (motoring), Work Place & Careers, Property etc) including the Sesotho supplement Mosotho. Since the beginning of June it has been appearing twice a week with a smaller Monday as well as a larger Friday edition. The Voice of Free Democrats is a newspaper strong on Basutoland Congress Party political nostalgia. Its Sesotho section is called Mohala oa Ntsu (‘Ntsu calling’) as if the paper has a direct line to the late BCP leader Ntsu Mokhehle. Watchdog struggles to be a weekly, and also struggles to write English. It does sometimes appear weekly for a few weeks at a time and then lapses into silence, before re-emerging. The Weekly Mail despite its name is also not always weekly, and also has long gaps. As for Sesotho newspapers, four of those being published 10 years ago remain, namely Lentsoe la Basotho, Moafrika, Moeletsi oa Basotho and Mololi, respectively representing government, an independent publisher, the Catholic Church and a political party (the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy). Moafrika represents the views of its increasingly eccentric publisher, Candi Ramainoane, or as he often styles himself, Professor Sebonomoea (‘windy buttocks’). Striking coloured photographs in bad taste downloaded from the internet often decorate his A4 cover page. He has recently toned these down a bit and reversed the trend of some of the other papers by having an English supplement called The Critic with effect from 4 July 2008. While Moafrika at one time was a severe critic of government, it now generally supports government policies. So the tally is ten years ago Sesotho: English, 6: 3. Now it is Sesotho: English 4: 10. Whereas half the newspaper titles a decade ago were published in English the ratio is now more or less reversed. For completeness, fortnightlies should get a look in. Here the situation is now just as it was ten years ago. There are two of them, Leseli ka Sepolesa, published by the Lesotho Mounted Police, and Leselinyana la Lesotho, published by the Lesotho Evangelical Church. This is easily Lesotho’s oldest newspaper, and was once weekly, although few now alive will remember this. Its first issue appeared in November 1863, so that it is now in its 146th year. Today it struggles to survive, and it is one of the few newspapers which does not regularly use colour, although it shares this characteristic with Moeletsi oa Basotho of the Catholic Church and the political newspaper Mololi. Amongst recent trends has also been the advent in Lesotho of the free newspaper. Newspapers that cover their costs from advertising are able to distribute copies free. At present, this is done by Informative, Maddhouse Weekly, Maloti News, Weekly Mail and the Monday edition of Public Eye. Free newspapers disappear faster than those for which one pays, and are not handled by the young boys who sell newspapers on the streets. They are therefore more difficult to acquire regularly unless one can make an arrangement with the publishers. There is no door-to-door delivery of free newspapers as in many countries. King Honours Wide Range of People at Birthday Awards Ceremony The annual King’s Birthday Awards Ceremony was held at the Royal Palace on Tuesday 15 July 2008. As reported in Lesotho Times of 24 July 2008, more than 400 persons were decorated, the majority of them members of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service, the Lesotho Defence Force and the Lesotho Correctional Service. Amongst civilians decorated were Dr ’Musi Mokete, the veteran ophthalmologist and President of the Lesotho Medical Council, who was made a Commander of the Most Meritorious Order of Mohlomi (CMMOM), while the same award was given to the veteran educationalist and politician, Tšeliso Makhakhe. Another long-serving politician and the oldest practising lawyer in Lesotho, Advocate Godfrey ’Molotsi Kolisang was made Commander ot the Most Loyal Order of Ramatšeatsana. Two others were made Members of the same Order and were Phatela Thamae for outstanding work in farming and Dirk Schwager for outstanding work in promoting tourism through photography. Three advocates were awarded the honour of King’s Counsel. They were Motiea Teele, Karabo Mohau, and Salemane Phafane. Prince Harry Back in Lesotho & Helps King Letsie III to Celebrate Birthday With a minimum of publicity, Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, came back in Lesotho to work on Sunday 6 July 2008. The specific project he is working on, partly funded by his Sentebale (‘Forget-me-not’) charity, is the Thuso Community Centre at Butha-Buthe, designed for mentally handicapped children. Supporting Prince Harry for three weeks is a 25-strong team from his regiment, the Household Cavalry. On Thursday 17 July, it was the turn of Mafeteng to host the King’s Birthday celebrations, which included a skydiving display by the Lesotho Defence Force. A special Pitso House costing M1.4 million was built for the occasion and will subsequently be used as a recreational centre. Amongst those present was Prince Harry of Wales and his friend Prince Seeiso Seeiso, the Lesotho High Commissioner in London. On this occasion he was back in Lesotho, not only for his brother’s birthday party, but also to accompany the group of British army officers who were on a civilian mission to build the Thuso Community Centre. The press was supposed to honour a commitment to let Prince Harry get on with his job. However, it could not resist a report that Prince Harry’s cell-phone had been stolen at a night club in Butha-Buthe. It was recovered from the thief and Prince Harry declined to lay charges. National University of Lesotho Vice-Chancellor Faces Criticism from Press and Students The Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Lesotho, Professor Adelani Ogunrinade, was seldom out of the newspapers during the third quarter of 2008. The principal story, as told in Public Eye of 11 July 2008, related to a US$800 000 (M6.4 million) grant in January 2008 from the US-based Kellogg Foundation to enable NUL to better impact on rural development in Lesotho through assistance to research, staff training and community development initiatives. In the event a significant proportion of the grant had been disbursed as honoraria to NUL lecturers and researchers who were designated ‘junior fellows’ together with the appointing for each junior fellow a senior adviser known as a ‘mentor’. Junior fellows were paid M5 000 per month on top of their regular salaries and mentors M2 000 per month. Each was also given a lap-top computer, even though in this day and age it was likely to be something they already owned. The most controversial feature, however, was that the Vice-Chancellor had paid himself M100 000 in project management fees. The matter had led to unease at Council level, and the Chairman of Council, Mr Ramosehlana Mapetla had asked the University’s internal auditor to prepare a report on what had actually happened. The report includes many criticisms, amongst them that income tax had not been deducted from the payments, that the normal proportion of extra income for consultancies had not been deducted, that the beneficiaries were not bonded to the university and could leave at any time, and that the beneficiaries had not shown any evidence of registration for higher degrees before payment. Moreover the selection of candidates was not done through the Localisation and Training Board which had 43 names on its waiting list, but was done by the ViceChancellor and one senior professor. Meanwhile with the beginning of the new academic year, there was very little teaching actually taking place at Roma. The problem was that the supplementary results were not available at the normal registration time, and so students did not know whether they could proceed or had to repeat a course or a year. Repeating students have to pay for themselves, and one student remarked that he needed to know if he had to repeat urgently because if so, he had to go back to his village and get his family to sell some cattle to raise money so that he would be able to register, all of which took time. Amongst other problems were that maintenance work on a number of classrooms was still incomplete, that no university calendar had been produced for the new academic year, that there was overcrowding in lecture halls, and that there was a dire shortage of lecturers. As a result students took strike action in what should have been the second week of classes. However, on Friday 15 August there was a meeting between the Student Representative Council and the University Senate and this led to a resumption of classes the following Monday. The Kellogg story did not however go away. Public Eye returned to it on 29 August 2008 with a front page lead story headline, ‘Kellogg dumps NUL’. It is reported, quoting ‘sources close to the Maseru office of the foundation’ that Kellogg would halt further funding at the end of the year. The Vice-Chancellor, however, denied that this was true. In an interview with Nthakeng Selinyane elsewhere in the newspaper, the Vice-Chancellor had his opportunity to attack the audit report commissioned by Council. He had refused to cooperate with the internal auditor, Sebehela Selepe, ‘because he was a bitter man intent on doing harm to me and the university’. This was said to have been because Selepe had not himself received any of the Kellogg money. The Vice-Chancellor’s woes were not an end. Both the Non-Academic Workers Union (NAWU) and the Lesotho University Teachers’ and Researchers’ Union (LUTARU) were pressing for enhanced salary rises and mounted demonstrations. The latter was only granted 5% in 2008, despite inflation running at more than twice this rate, and also despite Lesotho civil servants having received an across-theboard rise of 15%. A major cause for discontent was also the raising of interest rates on housing, vehicle and furniture loans to university staff, and NAWU’s members marched on the Vice-Chancellor’s Office on Thursday 7 August 2008 and presented a petition, which the Vice-Chancellor promised to relay to Council. Grievances shared by both LUTARU and the students included the freezing of academic posts and the reduction of faculty operating budgets. LUTARU, as reported in Lesotho Today of 28 August 2008, was particularly concerned about the decision to promote staff based in the newly implemented Paterson Salary Review Model, which has replaced the previous model in which staff received annual increments. LUTARU presented its own petition which also complained about the delay by Council to pronounce itself on the internal audit report on the alleged maladministration of the Kellogg Foundation money. The Secretary-General of LUTARU said that it was giving the university administration five days to respond, after which it would initiate appropriate industrial action. As if this were not enough, Lesotho Times of 4 September 2008 ran the front page headline: ‘NUL’s books in shambles: varsity has no proper accounting system’. The article which followed was based on the 2004/5 auditor’s report, the latest available, and amongst its findings were that, because of the failure to reconcile general ledger accounts with underlying records, about M49.5 million remained unaccounted for in the period under review. The present Vice-Chancellor who has been in post for less than two years could hardly be held responsible for 2004/05 accounts, but it seems that later accounts have yet to be audited. Moreover, the Bursar has himself for some time been under suspension. The present administration has inherited a terrible situation in relation to the keeping of university accounts. It is by no means a new situation and indeed had reached crisis proportions some years earlier. Indeed so bad was the situation in the Bursary in 2001 that the university ordered a forensic investigation undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers Forensic Services of Bloemfontein and understood to have cost more than M1 million. A series of more than 20 reports were prepared by PWC and submitted to the university in 2002. They covered almost every aspect of university financial matters from the operation of the bookshop to the tendering process and the use of a sole travel agent. They were extremely critical of a number of university staff and in particular revealed that the Bursary was in a state of considerable disarray. However, so chaotic was the record keeping that it became very difficult to find any staff guilty of corruption or fraud. The suspended members of the Bursary were all reinstated but the situation did not improve. The matter of a malfunctioning Bursary has not been helped by the rapid turnover of Vice-Chancellors, and the present senior administrators have apparently not even seen the PWC forensic audit reports, the disappearance of which was certainly in the interest of the staff criticized therein. However, duplicate copies could no doubt be supplied by PWC on request for a fee. The forensic reports recommended that drastic and decisive steps be taken to rectify the situation at the Bursary and to ensure the proper observance and enforcement of financial controls. PWC offered its own services for instituting an internal audit function and fraud prevention mechanisms. It would seem that a possible option and way out of the present morass might be for the University to take up this offer, so that PWC might turn the Bursary again into the efficient unit it once was. Along the way, no doubt, PWC could indicate the staff that should be retained and those that should be retired. However, before taking this step, the university should ask PWC to give the names of perhaps three institutions for which they have performed a similar service. These institutions could then be visited to see that PWC was capable of delivering the goods. Bringing in PWC (or a similar firm) would be expensive, but in the long run would be well worth the money spent. In NUL’s present financially parlous state, donors, and indeed even government itself, might be very reluctant to invest more funds. Load Shedding Diminishes Load shedding, a daily occurrence in Lesotho for most of those using electricity, began to diminish bythe end of August, thanks to warmer weather and, it seems, better management at Eskom, which had in the meantime managed to build up stocks of coal for power stations. It was also announced at the end of August that a new Chief Executive of Eskom had been appointed. He is Bobby Godsell, former Chairman of the Anglo-American Corporation, South Africa’s largest gold mining group. He was brought out of retirement to take on the job. Minister of Foreign Affairs Reveals British Concern over Corruptly Issued Lesotho Passports As reported by several newspapers in late July, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, Mohlabi Kenneth Tsekoa, has reported that Britain was considering applying visa conditions for Basotho visiting Britain following terrorist and criminal activities which had been carried out by foreign nationals, some of whom had valid Lesotho passports. Tsekoa reported that some of those holding Lesotho passports were not in fact Basotho and that the British had decided to work in concert with Lesotho to curb corruption in the production, control, issue and use of Lesotho passports. ‘Beginning in August this year, the two countries will jointly embark on a programme to address this concern, to be reviewed after six months. If things have not improved [by then], all Basotho visiting the United Kingdom will be required to acquire visas to visit.’ Given that Lesotho no longer has a British High Commission, a visa requirement for Basotho visiting the UK will present a considerable bureaucratic hurdle. Lesotho Performs Disastrously in Olympic Games A team of five Basotho left for Beijing on Monday 28 July to participate in the Olympic Games. The team was made up of three men and one woman, all marathon runners, who had had expensive pre- Olympics training at Eldoret in Kenya. The male athletes were Mabuthile Lebopo, Moeketsi Mosuhli and Tsotang Maine, while the woman athlete was ’Mamoroallo Tjoka. There was also one boxer, Thabiso Nketu, who had been at a training camp in Tunisia. Lesotho also provided Monethi Monethi, one of the team of 34 international referees assigned to officiate in the Olympic boxing events. Nine officials accompanied the Lesotho participants, a fact which brought criticism in the press. Lesotho first participated in the Olympic Games in 1972, but at the beginning of the 2008 games it was one of 31 out of 53 African countries which had never won an Olympic medal. The 22 African countries with medals from the past were headed by South Africa with 69 medals, Kenya with 61 medals and Ethiopia with 31 medals. Alas! Lesotho’s hopes of a medal were again dashed, with none of the marathon runners completing the course, while the boxer was eliminated in the preliminary stages. Kenya with 14 medals (5 gold) and Ethiopia with 7 medals (4 gold) were the best African performing countries. Mauritius, Sudan and Togo were three African countries who acquired a medal for the first time. South Africa, which in the past has acquired numerous medals, was this time embarrassingly 71st in the medals table. Basotho, however, might take consolation from the single South African medal, a silver medal in the long jump. The medallist was one Khotso Mokoena, who although born at Heidelberg in South Africa’s Gauteng Province, certainly has a name which suggests he is of Basotho descent. Lesotho has one distinguished past athlete, Thabiso Moqhali, who came back from the Malaysian Commonwealth Games in 1998 with a gold medal after winning the marathon. He attributed Lesotho’s poor display to poor preparation and, as quoted in Public Eye of 29 August 2008, regarded it as ‘suicidal’ that the athletes were sent to Kenya at a time of political unrest. He said it was high time that Lesotho athletes participated in events such as the Boston and London Marathons. Good performances in the annual Soweto Marathon were not enough. Other media comment indicated that the members of the Lesotho team were far from happy about the allowance of just M1500 per month awarded to them by the Lesotho Olympic Committee, and this dispute may have impacted on their performance. It was also reported that the men’s marathon runners had had a dispute with their coach, Kenneth Hlasa, over the quality of the tight nylon running shorts which they had demanded for running the race, but had only been received two days before the event. Basotho to Study in China Links with China are not merely in the Olympic field. In the same month as the Olympics, 12 Basotho bound for China were given a farewell reception by the Chinese Ambassador Qui Bohua on Friday 22 August 2008. The students were selected out of some 500 applicants. They are the largest group to be sponsored by the Chinese Government so far. New Lesotho High Commissioner to the Republic of South Africa As reported in Lesotho Today of 31 July 2008, Lesotho has a new High Commissioner to South Africa. She is Mrs ’Matlotliso Lineo Ntoane, a career civil servant, who most recently was Deputy Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Finance & Development Planning. She replaces the former High Commissioner, Mosiuoa Moteane. Teachers Mount Demonstration in Favour of Xhosa and Sephuthi Medium Schools As reported in the Mopheme supplement of Lesotho Times of 7 August 2008, some 200 teachers mounted a demonstration at the District Secretary’s Office in Qacha’s Nek complaining that children who spoke Xhosa and Sephuthi were not taught in primary schools in their own languages. It was said that the majority of the inhabitants of Quthing and Qacha’s Nek Districts spoke one of these two languages. While this is probably an exaggeration, there is no doubt that the rights of minority-language speakers in the two districts have seldom been observed. A ministry spokesman, Philip Mapetla, responded fairly positively to the petition of the teachers. He said that when the new Education Act was developed, there would be provision for speakers of Xhosa and Sephuthi. Newspaper Criticizes ‘Immoral’ Advertizing In July 2008, Vodacom Lesotho targeted the Lesotho public on billboards and in newspapers with a coloured advertisement showing two men standing at urinals in a toilet, with the accompanying message ‘When it comes to broadband connectivity ... size matters!’ While for many this would be considered a tasteless if not offensive advertisement, Refiloe Mohapi, writing in The Voice of Free Democrats of 13 August 2008 denounced it as ‘immoral’. He regarded the advertisement as against Basotho cultural beliefs, norms and practices and called for Vodacom to withdraw the advertisement. A further critical article on the advertisement appeared in the newspaper’s Sesotho supplement, Mohala oa Ntšu the following week. New Lesotho Heron Species Recorded and Burchell’s Courser Reappears after 107 Years There is a small but active birding community in Lesotho, mainly expatriates, although a number of Basotho have been trained in recent years as bird guides. There is no published Lesotho bird atlas, although birders are encouraged to send in monthly bird cards either to Dr Ian Love at the National University of Lesotho or to David Ambrose (who maintains the main database, and whose address is now Box 958, Ladybrand 9745, South Africa). Cards can be obtained from either Ian Love or David Ambrose. The Lesotho bird total was recently 349 species, of which 19 species were purely historical, defined to mean that all known records are earlier than the year1950. However, in the past three months, the species total has risen to 350 and one of the historical species has been again recorded in Lesotho after an interval of 107 years. The new species is the Green-backed Heron, Butorides striata, a remarkably cosmopolitan bird found from the Galapagos islands of Ecuador, across the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia to Australia. In southern Africa, however, it is only common from Gauteng northwards through to Zimbabwe and the wetter areas of Botswana, particularly the Okavango swamps. There have been a few scattered records from the Free State, but the first Lesotho record was by Ian and Alison Love who saw a single bird in the inner marsh at Mokema on 20 July 2008. They had no difficulty in recognizing it, being familiar with the bird from Zimbabwe. The Green-backed Heron is a small heron with a typically hunched stance, usually seen solitary and skulking for its diet of insects, tadpoles, frogs and small fish. The species now recorded apparently for the first time in 107 years is Burchell’s Courser, Cursorius rufus. The 1901 record had been made by J. P. Murray of the Basutoland colonial service, when stationed at Mafeteng. Few bird books were then available, and he made notes of Lesotho birds in his copies of Layard & Sharpe’s The birds of South Africa issued in parts over the period 1875-84 and also, when they became available, the four volumes of Stark and Sclater’s similarly titled book, published over the period 1900-6. Fortunately, Murray’s son presented his father’s books with their annotations to the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology in Cape Town, and the importance of Murray’s manuscript notes was recognized by J. M. Winterbottom of the Institute who in 1964 transcribed them to make them into a small ‘Fitztitute’ publication. On Burchell’s Courser, Murray wrote ‘Uncommon in Basutoland but in 1901 two large flocks came to Mafeteng from O.R.C. [Orange River Colony] probably owing grass growing too rank and long during the war [the reference is to abandoned farms, as a result of the British taking the owners as prisoners-of-war and putting their families into concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War]’. On 3 August 2008, Ian de la Rosa and two other birders from Maseru saw and photographed clearly Burchell’s Courser, two groups each of four birds at a dry pan just west of Tša-Kholo in Mafeteng District. Mark Behle of Masitise, another birder, on hearing of this record also went to Tša- Kholo and saw four birds nearby on 9 August 2008. Burchell’s Courser is a relatively uncommon insectivorous plover-like bird nearly endemic to southern Africa, where it occurs in areas west and north-west of Lesotho, continuing through Namibia to the southern tip of Angola. It favours stony and overgrazed grassland, semi-desert and salt pans. Along with perhaps two other species of courser it has the Sesotho name mokopjoane, and there is a reference in J. J. Machobane’s book, Mahaheng a matšo (1946), to its occurring in Lesotho in ancient times. [Illustrations in this article are taken from the 2002 edition o f the late Kenneth Newm an’s Birds of southern Africa.] Lerotholi Polytechnic in Trouble A second tertiary institution, the Lerotholi Polytechnic, commonly known as Fokothi after its founder, Rev. Nelson Fogarty, was also in trouble in August. Students who had overstepped the mark and injured other students in freshman initiation rituals were reported to the police, who then allegedly in turn also tortured them leading to widespread student protests and a boycott of classes. The Deputy Rector (Administration), Machela Nkhethoa, then decided to close the institution. When students returned, as reported in Public Eye of Monday 15 September 2008, they rioted in the evening following Graduation Day, and fought with security guards who were trying to enforce the rule that no alcohol should be brought on campus. Some college property was damaged and one student shot in the leg. Limkokwing Off to a Shaky Start; Two Camels have their Windows Broken A third tertiary institution, the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, opened its doors in Maseru for the first time in mid-August. It was not a very smooth start, because facilities were still rudimentary, in particular hostel accommodation for students. An arrangement had been made with Christ the King High School in Roma for Limkokwing students to use surplus boarding facilities. These had remained empty for a generation since a violent strike had endangered the lives of the teaching staff, and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart had subsequently resolved that the school would never again take boarders. The present Christ the King boys are, however, resentful that they have to lodge in substandard accommodation in villages, when the school could accommodate them. Limkokwing negotiated with CKHS, and as a result it was agreed that they could rent the empty accommodation, while the government buses, commonly known as ‘camels’ would ferry the students between Roma and Maseru. Neither institution seems to have consulted the CKHS schoolboys for their opinion, and when they discovered that Limkokwing was accommodating women students in their all-male establishment, they began singing bawdy songs such as Ha re batle matekatse mona (‘We don’t want whores here’). Moreover on Tuesday 19 August the students attacked the camels with the women students inside, as a result of which many windows were broken and two women students suffered injuries to their eyes. A CKHS student at the same time was attacked by a bus driver and injured. CKHS students, many of them preparing for their final examinations, were sent home for the rest of the week. Some relief to the Limkokwing hostel situation was provided by its being able to rent the former Hotel Malunga at Lekhaloaneng on the outskirts of Maseru. This building, owned by the millionaire business man and erstwhile convict, Makhoza Malunga, has had a range of uses, starting life as a rather downmarket hotel, after which it housed for a while the alluringly named Advanced Technology High School (which seemed to have no entrance requirements other than an ability to pay fees). As a Limkokwing hostel it is rather a long walking distance from the main campus. There was also trouble at the Limkokwing main campus which is in buildings formerly housing the School Supply Unit, buildings already being used by the nearby Lerotholi students for certain lectures. One of their several strike grievances was that they had been deprived of using this building. These events were referred to by the Minister of Education and Training, Dr ’Mamphono Khaketla, in her speech during the official opening of Limkokwing on 25 August 2008. She referred to government’s commitment to safety and protection for the new students. Students interviewed by Public Eye in its issue of 29 August 2008 were generally upbeat about their opportunities to study at the new university. They praised the flexibility of the entrance requirements which enabled them to register after several fruitless attempts to get into the National University of Lesotho and the Lerotholi Polytechnic. It seems however that many students are registered for subjects such as tourism management and information technology. The skills areas in greatest demand in Lesotho such as nursing, medicine, and mathematics and science teaching seem not to be catered for. New UNDP Resident Representative Presents Her Credentials As reported in Lesotho Monitor of 14 August 2008, a new United Nations evelopment P r o g r a m m e R e s i d e n t Representative and Resident Coordinator has presented her credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, Mohlabi Kenneth Tsekoa. She is Ms Ahunna Eziakowa-Onochie, Nigerian born and US educated, where her area of study was political science and international affairs with a focus on economic and political development in Africa. She has served for some 12 years with the United Nations Secretariat, and most recently in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), where she served as Chief of the Africa Section, managing over 15 country operations in Africa. Death of Khalaki Sello KC The death occurred in Johannesburg on Friday 22 August 2008 at the age of 75 of Khalaki Sello KC, one of the most respected members of the Lesotho legal fraternity. He had been ailing for some time as a result of pancreatic cancer and associated diabetes. Khalaki Sello, a Motšoeneng, was born on 4 August 1933 at Mohalinyane in ohale’s Hoek District, the son of Tšepe Mareka and Kelebone ’Masello Sello. His father was a policeman employed in the then Orange Free State, and as a result Khalaki attended primary school in Jagersfontein and secondary school in Kroonstad, after which he proceeded to Basutoland High School in Maseru where he was awarded the South African Matriculation Certificate in 1952 (this was before ‘Bantu Education’ resulted in Lesotho adopting the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate). From there he proceeded to Fort Hare University College to read for a BA in History & Political Science in the period 1953 to 1955. He was politically active and Secretary of the Students Representative Council. When the College closed after unrest in April 1955 students were sent home and required to reapply for admission. In his case readmission was refused. For the next 18 months he worked sporadically in Lesotho and Johannesburg, and on 22 May 1956 he married a fellow Fort Hare student, Betty Lebitso of Dube, Soweto, the marriage being eventually blessed with a son, Sechaba, and three daughters, Kelebone, Mahlape and Hapiloe. Meanwhile, he had secured a place at the University of Natal in Durban, where he completed his BA degree and went on to the LLB, followed by serving of articles of clerkship with the firm of Arenstein & Fehler. While in Natal he joined the South African Communist Party and he was also a member of the Natal Executive Committee of the African National Congress, which led to his arrest and conviction on a charge of membership of an illegal organization. He was imprisoned in April 1963 in Kroonstad, and on release was placed under 5 years house arrest and confined to Umlazi in Durban. His principal, R. I. Arenstein (who was later to write that ‘Sello was one of the best articled clerks I ever had’) was also under house arrest at the time. Since they were forbidden to communicate under their banning orders, the serving of his last three months of articled clerkship became problematic. At the end of November 1965, Khalaki Sello fled to Lesotho, where he joined the Communist Party of Lesotho and by doing so had to forfeit his long standing membership of the Basutoland Congress Party. He subsequently became a part-time Lecturer in Law at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, as well as an Advocate of the Courts of Lesotho. He had been a tireless worker for human rights since his student days in South Africa, but in Lesotho the situation was also bad. Together with a former Lesotho Principal Secretary for Justice, Tšepo Mohaleroe, the firm of Mohaleroe, Sello & Company was founded. In the years immediately after Independence in 1966 it took up the cases of victims of unjust laws and laws irregularly applied. It played a particularly important role in trying to secure the release of many Basutoland Congress Party members who were arrested without proper procedures being followed. This happened particularly after disturbances at Thaba-Bosiu on 27 December 1966 and again after the coup of 1970 and the failed uprising of 1974. Sello acted on behalf of many disadvantaged persons in Lesotho including in later years ANC refugees, and on one occasion his own house was attacked apparently as an attempt to deter him. He was not deterred. Mohaleroe, Sello & Co. operated out of Mohokare Chambers, then the first building (shared with Dr I. M. Thelejane’s dental surgery) on the left after the roundabout on the road from Maseru to Teyateyaneng (officially in those days, as the arch across the road outside their office proclaimed, known as Leabua Highway, although some preferred to call it Leabua ha o oe). The offices had originally been occupied by two South African refugee lawyers, Tšepo Letlaka and Wycliffe Tsotsi, but they had been deported by the Lesotho Government. For a long period Khalaki Sello combined part-time work as a Lecturer (later Senior Lecturer) in Law at Roma with his legal practice. The offices of Mohaleroe, Sello & Co. were at times searched by the Police Mobile Unit, and staff harassed. At the same time he also became a close friend of King Moshoeshoe II who was himself also chafing under Leabua Jonathan, and indeed was in 1970 exiled for some time to the Netherlands. Khalaki Sello became the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the King’s school, Moshoeshoe II High School, at Matsieng. Khalaki Sello was always close to King Moshoeshoe II. When the undemocratic regime that had existed in Lesotho from 1970 was overthrown by a military coup in 1986, King Moshoeshoe II was granted limited executive powers. This enabled him to appoint a Council of Ministers, which included many people, including Sello (as Minister for Law, Public Service, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs), who thought that they were participating in a process leading to the restoration of democratic rule. (He was Minister for Constitutional Affairs when there was in fact no Constitution!) The hopes of those in the Council of Ministers were dashed, however, when it became apparent that the real power still remained with the military. When the King himself clashed with the military, it led to the King’s own dismissal. It is perhaps typical of his independent stance, that Khalaki Sello never accepted an invitation to become himself a judge. He believed he could better serve human rights as an advocate. He was, however, honoured when on 25 June 2003, King Letsie III conferred on him the honour and dignity of King’s Counsel, at the time the only person to be so awarded the honour apart from the holders of the office of AttorneyGeneral, who under the Legal Practitioners Act 1983 are ex officio entitled to the designation King’s Counsel. Khalaki Sello did not often publish his views, but an exception was his comment on the Sexual Offences Bill in Lesotho Monitor for November-December 2002. He described it as ‘an angry piece of legislation. It expresses the wrath, the desperation of our society at what can only be described as the worst plague to be visited on mankind’. This was inter alia a reference to the draconian sentences provided by the Bill and particularly to the death penalty prescribed for a person who knows he or she is HIV-positive and engages in a sexual act with another person without disclosing his or her status. This provision in what became the Sexual Offences Act 2003 has been an obstacle to the subsequent Know Your Status campaign, so important to enable HIVpositive persons to become aware of their condition and to seek the necessary antiretroviral treatment. Elsewhere, Khalaki Sello played a major role with Colin Murray and Peter Sanders in facilitating the fieldwork for their major academic study, Medicine murder in colonial Lesotho: the anatomy of a moral crisis (2005). The authors acknowledge his role and diplomatic skills in their ‘search of the testimony of key individuals who were caught up in medicine murder in one way or another’. The funeral was held on Saturday 30 August 2008 at the National Convention Centre in Maseru, and presided over by Khalaki Sello’s son-in-law, the former diplomat and now Johannesburg businessman, Reginald Mokheseng Tekateka. Amongst those present, a number of whom spoke, were former fellow Fort Hare students in their black blazers emblazoned with parallel groups of vertical yellow stripes. All now very elderly, these included Dr Charles Thabo Maitin, who had delivered some of Khalaki’s children, and Lesotho’s oldest advocate, Godfrey ’Molotsi (‘GM’) Kolisang, who is still practising. When the Lesotho Law Society had been founded in 1983, Khalaki Sello had been first President and GM Kolisang had been VicePresident. Others who spoke were former political prisoners who had served time with him in gaol, and Jeff Radebe, South African Minister of Transport, who spoke on behalf of the many South African refugees who had been in exile in Maseru and had received Khalaki’s help. His Majesty Letsie III, as is the custom, spoke last and particularly described the close relationship that there had been between his own and Khalaki’s families. Those who spoke referred to Khalaki’s love, warmth, generosity and eloquence with, however, an occasional reference also to his mercurial temperament. Songs including some hymns were provided by the Maseru City Chorale, and slides of the Sello family were projected throughout the funeral. Although the funeral did not have the usual church service of Lesotho funerals, there emerged at the end a nephew who was a preacher and he made up for this with a somewhat lengthy address. The interment was at the Maseru West cemetery in one of the now very few remaining plots. Khalaki Sello was predeceased by his wife, Betty, a Fort Hare science graduate, who was a teacher and headmistress of Maseru Day High School (the old Maseru Intermediate School). He is survived by his three daughters, Kelebone (wife of Mokheseng Tekateka), Mahlape and Hapiloe (all now resident in South Africa). His only son, Sechaba, predeceased them, but is survived by his wife. He is also survived by two sisters and a brother, and four grandchildren. New Government Buses Formally Handed Over As reported in Lesotho Monitor of 28 August 2008, Fred Cason of John Williams Motors in Bloemfontein formally handed over 20 buses to the Lesotho Government at the Lesotho Freight Bus Services’ depot in Maseru on Wednesday 20 August 2008. The buses were received by the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Tšele Chakela, who expressed appreciation to the company, and spoke of the fitness and comfort of the new buses. The new buses have also helped to create jobs for 80 Basotho men. Fred Cason spoke of the warm relationship that they had with Lesotho business and announced that his company was opening a workshop in Ladybrand, so that it would not be necessary to go as far as Bloemfontein for service. This Ladybrand workshop was an interim solution while the company was working on a way to open one in Lesotho. Last Group of Defence Force Recruits in Passing Out Parade On Friday 29 August 2008 the Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili, spoke at the passing out parade of 247 new recruits to the Lesotho Defence Force. He mentioned that they were the last group who were passing out following the newly restructured defence policy. On the same occasion, the Commander of the Lesotho Defence Force, Lieutenant-General Thuso Motanyane, said ‘We would like to announce that this was the last intake for the moment. There will be more training when need arises but as for now there are enough officers [sic] to man all the battalions’. Queen ’Masenate Leaves for Studies at Columbia University Queen ’Masenate Mohato Seeiso, as reported in Moeletsi oa Basotho of 31 August 2008, left Lesotho on 27 August to resume studies at Columbia University in New York, where she has been undertaking a four-year degree course in stages. Japan and China Fund New Lesotho Secondary Schools As reported in Public Eye Monday Edition of 1 September 2008, Japan is funding seven new secondary schools, one in each of the districts of Butha-Buthe, Leribe, Berea, Maseru, Mafeteng, Quthing and Mokhotlong. The Minister of Education & Training, Dr ’Mamphono Khaketla said in a sod turning ceremony in Matholeng, Mafeteng, that the Japanese donation was M43 million, and it followed on earlier financial assistance which had been used to build 17 primary schools. A parallel development was reported in Lesotho Monitor of 4 September 2008 for Thaba-Tseka District where China was funding two new secondary schools, to be built by a Chinese contractor at a cost of M11 million. The new secondary schools will initially have six classrooms, one science laboratpry, a computer room, offices and teachers’ accommodation. Six Gaoled for Murder at Ha Seng As reported in Lesotho Times of 4 September 2008, a vendetta between two groups at Ha Seng near Semonkong, which has led to at least three sets of murders, was at least partly punished by the sentencing in the High Court in August of six people each to five years for murder. These people were sentenced for the murder of Potlaki Tjamela in June 1995, already said to have been a revenge attack. There were however at least two subsequent rounds of murders, in which the perpetrators murdered people thought to be responsible for or associated with previous murders (see Summary of Events, vol. 12, no. 2 (2005) and vol. 13, no. 2 (2006)). More than one person was murdered in each of the other incidents, but the perpetrators seem not to have yet been the subject of court judgments. A serious problem is that alleged murderers are let out on bail pending trials which only occur often ten or more years later, if at all. In the meantime, they may themselves be murdered or carry out further crimes. The presiding judge, ’Maseforo Mahase, criticized the delay in this particular case. ‘There is a serious problem in our justice system. This murder occurred some thirteen years ago and charges were only laid in 2004 by the prosecution. This matter ought to have been brought before this court much earlier’. She is not reported as commenting on why the case still took a further four years before a judgment was given. Thabo Thakalekoala Found Guilty on Sedition Charge Thabo Thakalekoala, a former Chairman of the Media Institute of South Africa, was found guilty of a charge of sedition by Justice Ntšabeng Mofolo on Tuesday 2 September. He was found not guilty of other charges of subversion, defamation and crimen injuria. Sentencing was delayed and the maximum sentence is two years in gaol, or a fine of M200 or both. [The statute book is full of laws where the monetary value of punishments has not been corrected to allow for inflation. The Sedition Proclamation 1938 celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.] The case was a sequel to Thakalekoala’s reading over the air on Harvest FM a letter which saidmthat the Lesotho Prime Minister was a foreign national because he held a South African ID document. Death of Chieftainess Anna ’Manapo Majara The death occurred on 4 September 2008 of Chieftainess Anna ’Manapo Majara of Sekamaneng in Berea District on the north-east outskirts of Maseru. Born in 1939, she was a person of considerable individuality, making it known that she preferred to be addressed as ‘Ntate’. Formerly a member of the Marematlou Freedom Party, at the time of the 1998 elections she formed her own party, the New Lesotho Freedom Party, although it did not make much impact at the polls. Nevertheless, she did play a part in politics when both in 1998 and 2002 she was appointed a Senator, and it was women Senators in particular who delivered tributes when the Senate resumed after its winter recess. It was noted that she adopted and brought up disabled and orphaned children, and also that she was in many ways a traditionalist, even using the traditional Latin salutation Dominus vobiscum. It went without saying that she followed the traditional worship of Our Lady of Victories in Maseru rather than the ba lik’horiana of the rival Maria ’Mabasotho Church, where the congregation clapped and danced in church to the music of an accordion. On the other hand a tribute in Moafrika of 21 September 2008 described her as a Moroma oa Mopholosoa (‘a born again Catholic’). She was known as a late night participant in Radio Lesotho religious programmes. Chieftainess ’Manapo was at different times a teacher, a nurse, a prison counsellor, and also very close to the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy to the extent that she gave refuge to members during the 1998 disturbances, for which she suffered having her house burnt down by dissident soldiers. New Aviation Act becomes Law The Aviation Act 2008 came into force on 5 September 2008, and was published as a supplement to the Lesotho Government Gazette on the same day. It updates and replaces in a single statute the Civil Aviation Act 1975 and the Aviation Offences Act 1975. The new Act inter alia defines the functions of the Department of Civil Aviation and its Director. It establishes a new Aviation Security and Facilitation Committee. Amongst other new provisions is the establishment of a Search and Rescue Unit within the Department and provision for setting up when necessary an Accident Investigation Board. The act defines a number of aviation offences for which offenders face penalties of up to 30 years imprisonment. Death of Chief ’Mualle Moshoeshoe of Likueneng The death occurred on 7 September 2008 at Maseru Private Hospital of Chief ’Mualle Moshoeshoe of Likueneng in the Mohale’s Hoek District. The Chiefs of Likueneng and Thaba-Tšoeu in Mohale’s Hoek District have long aspired to be full Principal Chiefs, and they do indeed have jurisdictions which are independent of the other Principal Chiefs of the district, giving them the unique status of ‘Independent Chiefs’. Descendants of King Moshoeshoe’s brother, Mohale, they have enhanced their status by marriages to daughters of Paramount Chiefs, as a result of which they regard themselves as descendants of King Moshoeshoe and have adopted his surname. In Senate, only the 22 Principal Chiefs are Senators ex officio, but the practice has grown up of including the two Independent Chiefs amongst the 11 appointed members. Chief ’Mualle was a grandson of Chief Goliath, an imposing character well-known for his oral declamations of praise poetry and for his mohobelo dancing. Ultimately, Chief ’Mualle was the great great- great-grandson of Chief Mohale after whom Mohale’s Hoek District is named. 478 Carat Diamond found at Letšeng The Letšeng Mine, situated at 3000 metres in Mokhotlong District, has yielded yet another large diamond, the 20th largest diamond ever discovered, and notable for its flawless condition, and outstanding colour and clarity. It was found on 8 September 2008, has yet to be named, and is expected to reach something of the order of US$15 million in the Antwerp diamond market. The world’s largest diamond, the Cullinan Diamond, discovered at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in 1905, weighed 3106 carats, while the present diamond weighs in at 478 carats. (5 carats = 1 gram). Out of the 20 largest diamonds known, three have been found in the present century, all of them at the Letšeng Mine, which is 70% owned by Gem Diamonds and 30% owned by the Lesotho Government. Although Lesotho is far from producing the annual output of 30 million carats which have made Botswana the most prosperous country in southern Africa, its diamond production is nevertheless growing steadily. According to the latest figures published in the Central Bank of Lesotho Quarterly Review of March 2008, the annual production rose from 45 380 carats in 2005 to 100 593 carats in 2006, and then again rose to 168 660 carats in 2007. In the first quarter of 2008 the production was 69 857 carats, suggesting that there will again be a rise in production of at least 60%. Lesotho diamonds, because of the high proportion of large stones, have a higher average value per carat than those of any other country. Dr Moeketsi Majoro Becomes an Executive Director of the IMF Dr Moeketsi Majoro, most recently Principal Secretary for Finance & Development Planning, has been appointed an Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund, where he will serve two years followed by being an Executive Director of the World Bank. In this career path he follows the Minister of Finance & Development Planning, Dr Timothy Thahane who held similar positions in the 1970s. Moeketsi Majoro is from Tsikoane in Leribe District, and after rising to become a Lecturer in the National University of Lesotho Department of Economics, resigned to join the Ministry of Finance & Development Planning in July 2000. Commissioner of Police Speaks on Cross-Border Car Theft at Conference As reported in Public Eye of 12 September 2008, Lesotho police have already impounded 243 stolen vehicles in 2008, of which 135 have been repatriated to their country of origin, South Africa, while others are under investigation or are in cases before the courts. These figures were given by the Lesotho Commissioner of Police, ’Malejaka Letooane at the annual conference of the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation in Windhoek, Namibia. She attributed success in this field to cooperation between the Lesotho Mounted Police Service and the South African Police Service. Public Eye interviewed the Maseru Regional Transport Association public relations officer, Lebohang Moea, who pointed out that not one of the 135 repatriated vehicles was a taxi, although he conceded that when joint LMPS/SAPS operations were carried out, taxis did disappear from local routes, suggesting that they were being hidden. He said that while ‘not advocating car theft, it should be noted that taxi operators did not have easy access to financial loans and, where available, they were prohibitively expensive’. House 9 Publications Relocates from Roma to Ladybrand With effect from 15 September 2008, House 9 Publications, formerly located at House 9, National University of Lesotho, has relocated to Ladybrand, with postal address Box 958, Ladybrand 9745, South Africa. It is planned to continue its operations using the same logo, which is a computer version of the sandstone House 9 on the Roma Campus of the National University of Lesotho. It was at this house that the originator of House 9 publications, David Ambrose, and his wife, Sumitra Talukdar, lived in the period 1971 to 2008. They have now relocated to 49 Joubert Street, Ladybrand, where their considerable collection of Lesotho materials is also housed. The latest House 9 publications list, prepared in July 2008, is available in rand and dollar versions and lists 37 available volumes in the Lesotho Annotated Bibliography series and 29 (25 still available) in the Lesotho Miscellaneous Documents series. One of the most recent in the LMD series (cover illustrated here) documents the present state of the Lesotho Annotated Bibliography, only a relatively small proportion of which is available in hard copy. The LAB database covers published and unpublished Lesotho materials including books, periodical articles, documents, consultancy reports, theses , map s et c and a s o f Jul y 2008 had 197 subject are a sections , 1 2 51 8 annotate d entries an d 7 803 pages . Six new volume s which have appeared in hard cove r during the pas t yea r are illustrate d o n the cover, an d four o f these are substantial volume s of more than 10 0 pages. The House 9 publication s list also include s two films , an historical map , three mathematical l games and the present Summary of Events in Lesotho. Maliba Mountain Lodge Opened by Prime Minister at Tšehlanyane On Thursday 11 September 2008, the Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili, officially opened new tourist accommodation at the Tšehlanyane National Park in Leribe District. The opportunity to create this park arose when a good gravel road was constructed during the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase I activities, so that tunnel boring machines could get access to the Hlotse Adit at the midway point of the main Transfer Tunnel between the Katse Reservoir and the ’Muela Hydropower Station. After LHWP activities had been completed, the opportunity was taken to develop the area near the adit as a nature reserve, one in which the indigenous cheche (Leucosidea sericea, ouhout) trees were particularly conspicuous and grew to great heights in the valley of the Tšehlanyane tributary of the Hlotse river. The tributary was apparently formerly the source of litšehlanyane, bamboo cuttings which were used as assegai handles, and the indigenous leqala (Thamnocalamus tessellata, Mountain Bamboo) still grows there. The Prime Minister was accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs of South Africa, Ms Rejoice Mabudafhasi, who handed over a donation of 10 elands for the park. The Maliba Mountain Lodge (depicted here) is owned by Stephen Phakisi and two other investors and has a lodge and six chalets, while a second nearby Riverside Lodge, jointly owned by the government and the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, will be opened in December with a further six chalets. In his speech the Prime Minister also mentioned proposals to tar the road to Tšehlanyane in the near future. Millennium Challenge Account Compact Launched A formal launching of the Millennium Challenge Account Compact took place at the ’Manthabiseng Conference Centre in Maseru on Wednesday 17 September 2008. Those speaking included the Prime Minister, Mr Pakalitha Mosisili, and the United States Ambassador, Mr Robert Nolan. The MCA Compact will finance 17 different individual activities in the areas of Health, Water and Private Sector Development and is valued at US$362.5 million. The US Ambassador also mentioned that Lesotho is benefiting from US funds from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which will provide US$140 million to Lesotho over the next five years to help reduce the incidence of AIDS particularly through educational activities. Amongst these are promoting the benefits of male circumcision, encouragement of changed sexual behaviour, and replacing myths about HIV/AIDS so that people will have a better understanding of the disease and how to prevent it. Vice-Chancellor Adelani Ogunrinade Provides Personal Insight into NUL’s Troubles The Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Lesotho, Professor Adelani Femi Ogunrinade, provided a very personal account of his woes at the centre of university disturbances in Lesotho in the Nigerian Guardian of 2 September 2008. The article was reprinted in Public Eye of 19 September 2008. It begins: ‘Last fortnight, I encountered the worst nightmare of Vice-Chancellors – bands of singing, chanting, placard-carrying and leaf-waving [sic], workers and academic staff – all asking me to go home – to my home country! ... I faced the nightmare of angry students, many singing vulgar and abusive songs in their native Sesotho ... To their credit, it was not overly violent, but it was threatening.’ He goes on to say that ‘Eighteen months into my job, my dreams [which he states earlier ‘to be a Vice-Chancellor anywhere in Africa’] have been called to the full test. I realise that good intentions are not enough for a Vice-Chancellor. You have to obtain the essential buy-in of all stakeholders – students, staff, government and the public at large on every issue. Even then, there are always some ‘fifth columnists’ who for their own ends, are always going to make life difficult for the average university chief executive’. He makes comparisons between events at NUL and events in Nigerian universities which have also had a turbulent history, and notes that ‘the African Vice-Chancellorship is not a bed of roses especially for foreigner VCs’. He also mentions the ‘possibilities of conspiracies with some in the Governing Council covertly fuelling the crisis as well’. He concludes with a series of tips on how to lead a university: * Keep your friends close and your enemies closer (the Yoruba proverb comes in handy here – once you can identify your enemies, they can no longer surprise you). * If you must remove a member of the university executive, be cold, clinical and calculating and see it to the end. To leave the snake’s head uncut, is to court more trouble! * There will always be conflicts and disagreements in a university. * Admit personal mistakes. Remember as VC you live in a fishbowl – everyone is watching you! * Keep a broad perspective and be forever optimistic. MKM Insolvent Many Times Over At a press conference on Wednesday 23 September 2008, the Governor of the Central Bank of Lesotho, Dr Moeketsi Senaoana, gave the findings of the forensic audit conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers into the banking and insurance affairs of the MKM/Star Lion Group. MKM’s assets had been frozen on 27 November 2007 following warnings that it was operating unstainable pyramid banking schemes offering 60% annual interest, and that it was unable to pay out investors the promised values of matured loans. The firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers was then brought in to investigate the true state of affairs of the MKM group into which large numbers of Lesotho residents had invested money expecting high returns. Dr Senaoana provided the bad news. In round figures, MKM’s assets, fairly valued were M100 million, while the investors’ money fairly estimated, amounted to M400 million. However, the investors had been offered interest rates of 60% and at that rate MKM owed an estimated M1 020 million payout to investors. In short, MKM’s assets were only about a tenth of what was needed to pay off its liabilities. It was insolvent. The M100 million of assets was enumerated to include land, residential and commercial properties including the former Lesotho Agricultural Development Bank Building (the first in Lesotho with escalators) on Kingsway; the as yet uncompleted Star Lion Insurance building behind Lancers’ Inn on Pioneer Road; the Star Lion Holdings building on Moshoeshoe Road; the Star Lion Funeral Centre in the Maseru Industrial Area; the Star Lion Gold Coin building; two properties in Mokhotlong; two in Maputsoe; one in each of Mohale’s Hoek, Moyeni, Mafeteng, Mekaling, Semonkong, Mount Moorosi and Qacha’s Nek; and the MKM Memorial Park in Khubetsoana, Maseru. Other assets included 198 vehicles registered in the names of the MKM Managing Director Simon Lebuoajoang Thebeeakhale and his companies. PricewaterhouseCoopers noted in their report that they had found it difficult to value the immovable properties because the value of property in Lesotho was not market-related. They had valued them by their purchase prices. Another problem was that some of the properties had still not been transferred to MKM under title deeds. The High Court has still formally to declare MKM insolvent but in the meantime the MKM Managing Director, is appealing in the Court of Appeal against the decision by the High Court to freeze MKM’s accounts. This appeal is set down for 8 October 2008. The MKM collapse is causing enormous suffering to many individual investors who unwisely invested their savings into the pyramid scheme. There are apparently some 164 000 of these investors, about one fifth of the adult population of Lesotho, while in Maseru it seems that nearly half the adult population placed their money in schemes that they believed would bring them wealth rapidly. All these people are awaiting a payout which seems unlikely to be more than 25% of their investments and only 10% of their expected returns. Turning the MKM assets into cash for payouts will be a formidable challenge, given the difficulty of selling immovable property in Lesotho. King Reproves University Management at Graduation Ceremony The Chancellorship of most universities is a purely ceremonial position, so that the Chancellor’s speech at graduation is a relatively anodyne account of university activities and good wishes to the graduates. In many universities the speech is written for the Chancellor by the university authorities. Not so at the National University of Lesotho. On Saturday 27 September 2008, the National University of Lesotho held its 33rd Graduation Ceremony in sunny spring weather. The speech of the Chancellor, His Majesty King Letsie III was, however, far from sunny. An NUL graduate himself, he lashed the current administration for its failureto act responsibly and publish audited financial accounts. As reported in Public Eye Monday Edition of 29 September 2008 he observed that donors’ reluctance to keep funding NUL could be due to nmanagement’s failure to account properly for such monies. ‘You need to prepare books annually to help government to account to donors and the nation on how money was spent here.’ As recorded elsewhere in this issue of Summary of Events, financial administration at the National University of Lesotho has been extremely lax and chaotic over a long period, culminating in a forensic audit costing over M1 million by the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Forensic Services in 2002. The firm subsequently offered effectively to take over the University Bursary and put its affairs in order, but this offer was not accepted, and seems not even to be known to the present senior administrators. There is no evidence that the situation has improved since 2002, and the continuing failure of the university to submit accounts timely for auditing has resulted in both government and donors restricting the flow of funds. The financial situation has recently become so critical that there has even been a moratorium in making new academic appointments, resulting in well qualified candidates, including local candidates, looking for employment at universities elsewhere. The Chancellor at the Graduation Ceremony also addressed the graduates exhorting them to go out and serve the nation wholeheartedly, using their analytical skills to solve the major social and economic problems facing Lesotho. Unemployment and poverty were widespread in Lesotho and they had a responsibility to make a difference and address the problems. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adelani Ogunrinade, mentioned recent developments and plans including the appointment of an HIV/AIDS coordinator to help awareness about the pandemic among students, many of who were dying annually. There were plans to build a new student centre and to improve internet access for students and lecturers. His reference to the recent student strike in which he was called on to resign occasioned some laughter: ‘I would not be standing here if students insisted on expelling me during that strike, which was actually my first ever experience of a toyitoyi’. The strike had signalled the end of a honeymoon period for him as VC. ‘It signalled the beginning of a serious selfexamination and triggered a move on my part to deliver the expected results from me. The story of NUL will not always be that of doom and gloom.’ A total of 1690 students received certificates, diplomas, ordinary degrees, honours degrees and post-graduate degrees, although at post-graduate level there were just two recipients of Masters’ degrees. There are still serious imbalances in numbers, evidence of the lack of manpower planning. For example, there were only 31 graduates in nursing (when the nation could easily have absorbed 10 times as many) while 43 graduated in the BA in Pastoral Care and Counselling, a popular course because of its lower entrance requirements, although its graduates find difficulty in obtaining employment. There is also a serious imbalance in producing teachers. Of 341 who graduated, just 32 (less than 10% of the total) graduated to become science teachers. Again 10 times as many science teachers are needed. Overall, 31 students were awarded First Class degrees, but the overwhelmingly largest numbers obtained ‘Desmonds’, Second Class Second Division degrees or 2-2s. In the Faculty of Law, although there were 103 Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degrees awarded, no-one got better than a Desmond. Prime Minister Awarded M50 000 Damages in Libel Case A long running case in which the Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili, sued The Mirror; its proprietor, Tebello Pitso; and its printer, Epic Printers for M250 000 damages for publishing a defamatory article, finally ended on Monday 29 September with a judgment by Justice Thamsanqa Nomncongo. The defendants were found guilty and were ordered to pay the sum of M50 000. To what extent the Prime Minister will actually receive this sum together with the costs granted is not clear. The Mirror newspaper ran out of funds and published its last issue in April 2006. Morija Festival Gets Telecom-Econet Sponsorship The Morija Arts & Cultural Festival which has recently been in financial trouble because of lack of sponsorship has announced that it has now secured M400 000 sponsorship from Telecom-Econet as a result of which it will be known as the Telecom-Econet Morija Arts & Cultural Festival. The festival will run from 1 October to 5 October, and will be held on the 10th Anniversary of the first Morija Festival. Update on Taliban in Lesotho Previous articles have appeared entitled ‘Osama and Taliban Compete for Basotho on the Move’ (Summary of Events, vol. 13, no. 1, First Quarter 2006), and ‘Osama Disappears but Taliban still going Strong in Lesotho’ (Summary of Events, vol. 14, no. 2, Second Quarter 2007). As noted in the previous articles, the headlines are not an invitation for US or NATO intervention, but rather an account of Lesotho’s 16-seat minibus taxis, whose owners adopt whimsical or eye-catching names, sometimes derived from popular culture or religious themes. These names are painted across their fronts or their windows. Although Osama disappeared some two years back, Taliban, mirroring events in Afghanistan, is still going strong and can be seen on the Maseru to Roma route daily. There are also numerous new taxis and those noted in the past year are in alphabetical order: Abuse, Almighty God, Anaconda, Atlantic, Assignment, Ayo Bayo, Babeli, Back to God, Batista, Bjatla, Bless me God, Blue Pigeon, Boy Boy, Catch me again, Centre of Attraction, Chinese Eye, Desperado, The Five Fifty, Foundation, Fupe, Give them Love, Ghost, The Giant, Guitar, The Heavens are Telling, Hobaneng?, Ichu!, Jesu ke Karabo, Jesu ke Leseli, Joyous, Lebitso le Fane, Lenyora, M3, Mabe, Magnum, Mamoratuoa, Marvelous Deeds, The Messenger, Moleni Madoda, Mopheme o oa lla, Motho Namane, Mountain King, My Pride, Nine Triple One, Nkosinathi, Oceanic, Performer, Phakoe, Phase 1, Phauphau, Please Forgive Me, Rager, Revolution, Romantic, Scientist, Section Two, Shemo, Sure, Takara, Take Five, Tennessee, Thabure, Tebele le Matsepo, Tumy, Waterfront, Wildfire, Word of Life and Xzbit. The analysis of trends is left to students of transport onomastics! World Events Covered by Lesotho Press The momentous events making headlines in the Third Quarter of 2008 outside Lesotho were commented on by the Lesotho press, which now includes an increasing component of world and regional news. Stories of interest included Barack Obama, of partial African descent, becoming the Democratic candidate for the US Presidential elections. Also covered was the major US story of a meltdown in the banking system and the associated implications for global markets because of recession. Closer to home, the crisis in Zimbabwe attracted considerable newspaper comment as Robert Mugabe, once hailed as an African hero, became increasingly cast as a ruthless dictator, responsible for his country’s economic decline. Lesotho, however, did not officially take the strong stance of President Ian Khama of Botswana who, following the elections in which the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the largest number of votes, refused to recognize Mugabe as a legitimate head of state. The swearing in of a new President of South Africa, Kgalema Motlanthe, was also covered with some interest by the Lesotho press. The outgoing President, Thabo Mbeki, resigned under pressure from the ruling party, the African National Congress, which perceived him as having politically interfered with the political aspirations of the ANC’s recently elected president, Jacob Zuma. Zuma will be the ANC’s most likely candidate for State President following the elections of 2009. Kgalema Motlanthe from the Zuma support group was seen as a caretaker President. Thabo Mbeki did have some Lesotho linkages, particularly through his mother Epainette Moerane, a member of the Basotho diaspora who has relatives in Lesotho and at 92 is herself still a sharp commentator on the South African political scene. Mbeki’s Sesotho name, Thabo, also derives from a veteran member of the Freedom Struggle, Thabo Mofutsanyana. Kgalema Motlanthe, born in Bela-Bela (Warmbaths) in Limpopo Province in 1949, is from the Northern Sotho grouping, with less connections with Lesotho, although he worked very closely with Lesotho-born James Motlatsi, the President of the National Union of Mineworkers. Motlanthe joined the NUM after 10 years on Robben Island. He became in time Secretary-General of the NUM and also in 1997 Secretary-General of the ANC. In 2007 he was elected ANC Deputy President. The veteran political commentator, Allister Sparks, writing in Business Day of 1 October 2008, describes Motlanthe as ‘a reassuring figure, a man of dignity and integrity who will undoubtedly focus on trying to stabilize the country during his all-too-brief interim presidency’. Annual Inflation Climbs Again but Good Rainfall Helps Maize Price After dipping in Lesotho to 9.5% in April 2008, a dip largely caused by events a year earlier relating to the maize price (see previous issue of Summary of Events), annual inflation in the third quarter, as measured by the eight towns consumer price index (CPI), adopted a rising trend, the result of rising food and fuel prices. By August it rose to 11.2%, the highest rate since December 2002 when inflation was also 11.2%. The closest South African inflation index, the CPIX, has meanwhile been increasing steadily from 8.8% in January to 13.6% in August (see chart). The CPIX has recently risen faster than the Lesotho CPI because its basket of goods factors in a much higher proportion for vehicle running costs and electricity. In Lesotho, as in South Africa, petrol prices rose in July and then fell in August. The petrol price had risen to M9.55 a litre in the Lowlands on 13 June 2008 while paraffin had risen at the same time in price to M8.80 a litre. There was a further dramatic rise to M10.40 on 11 July 2008 (paraffin M9.30), but on 8 August the price came down to M10.05 (paraffin M9.25) and on 5 September further fell to M9.25 (paraffin M7.90). The one good piece of news is that compared with last year’s poor maize crop, which fell short of local and regional needs so that imports were necessary, the 2008 South African maize crop is estimated at 11.6 million tons, well ahead of the 8.9 million tons annually consumed by South Africa and its maize-importing neighbouring countries Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. For the time being at least maize prices will not rise and have dropped slightly. However, the long term future is not so good because production depends on diesel fuel prices which are up 80%, as well as fertilizer prices which have risen 100% in the past year. Another factor is the weakness of the rand, because some 80% of all agricultural machinery is imported. It is not only the weather which determines the price of maize to the consumer. The weather conditions which helped the maize crop are illustrated by the Roma rainfall set out in the above chart which shows the rainfall for the water year October 2007 to September 2008 compared with the thirty most recent years and also compared with the mean rainfall. As can be seen, five of the six summer months had rainfall above the mean. June rainfall at 82 mm was the wettest June in 74 years of Roma records. However the three following months were extremely dry with a total of only 15 mm. As a result, as often happens in late spring and early summer, by late September many rivers were running dry and there were widespread water shortages.