Tuesday, 14 April 1987: Riots Rock Botswana’s Capital City

Gaborone, Botswana

The big news here are the recent riots over a local female witch doctor (sangoma) who allegedly kidnapped a 5-year-old girl from the low-income Gaborone suburb of Bontleng more than two weeks ago.  The girl was later found unharmed in a shopping complex.  The police alleged that she had been abducted by a mentally-ill 16-year-old girl, not the sangoma.  However, another sangoma disputed the police version in an interview on a Radio Botswana.  He claimed to have retrieved the girl from the female sangoma’s house.   Government officials believed that the broadcast inflamed passions of those who think there was a police cover-up.  The local journalist who conducted the interview was detained by the police for disputing their official version of the incident.  

In the meantime, an angry mob burned down the sangoma’s home on Monday night, 30 March.  On Wednesday morning our students staged a strike and planned to peacefully march to the capital to protest the journalist’s detention.  Before they could get out of the university gates, they were met riot police who dispersed them with clubs and tear gas.  Several were slightly hurt (bruises from clubs and skinned knees from falling on the pavement) including a couple of my first-year students.  The police formed a cordon around the campus to prevent students from leaving. 

I discretely took some photos of the riot police from a classroom building overlooking one of the entrance gates to the campus.  In the process, I got a few whiffs of tear gas which brought back “tearful” memories of U.S. Army basic training at Fort Ord, California in 1968 and student protests at Ohio State University where my national guard unit was sent in May 1970.  

All was relatively quiet by the time I snapped this photo of riot police stationed around one of the UB campus entrances on Wednesday, 1 April. 

 

The riots are surprising as the Batswana are normally very laid back.  The local papers are complaining about the heavy-handedness of the cops as well as senseless mob violence.  An article in the Botswana Gazette cited unnamed sociologists who identified several factors contributing to the riots including “a high level of unemployment in the urban population, inadequate housing facilities, high costs of rented accommodation in urban areas, and insufficient post primary education facilities for large numbers of youths…”  It appears to me that the alleged child abduction may have simply been the spark that released passions of discontent among a number of Batswana who are not sharing in the country’s prosperity.  I’m afraid that all is far from perfect in this “African paradise”.  

I suspect that the “Sangoma Affair” will get sorted out soon.  Botswana is, after all, a democracy, but as some ex-pats here are quick to point out, it’s never really been seriously tested.


        An article in the Botswana Gazette provided a timeline and background for the “Sangoma affair”.   


 



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