Soldiers must remember their first oath

Richard Moleofe | Friday January 15, 2016 16:39

The fellow was in pains trying to explain, but at the end of it all, I could surmise that the president is the embodiment of the whole citizenry.

I became very curious because we had taken an oath four days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and there was a rumour in the grapevine that we were being groomed for the eventual war between Iraq and the Allied Forces. The war was so popular because of the extended media coverage. We also wanted to be abreast with every inch of its development so much that one Officer Cadet nicknamed himself “Saddam”.

With the current levels of crime, I have gone back to reflect on what domestic enemies would be. It is much easy to describe foreign enemies. It is usually one country against another. That is straight forward. It’s two countries that are not at peace with each other.

The challenges with poaching have also come to awaken us into re-defining this grey line. Most of the poachers seem to be coming from Namibia, something that seems to be stealing the peace between our countries. Of course those poachers are foreign enemies. But they are often aided by citizens of Botswana and that poses a problem in defining the enemy when it has taken that hybrid form. It becomes both domestic and foreign.

In 1990, Botswana Defence Force (BDF) defined domestic threat as, among others things,  insurrection. The training offered focused more on how the defence force would deal with a guerrilla army that might arise for some reasons and terrorise the countryside and urban areas.

Remember that BDF had decided to alter its format of training from preparing for a conventional war to counter-insurgency acting on advice from British military experts. The British had advised the rest of Africa that there was certainly going to be a shift from fighting borders wars with neighbours, but rather there was going to be insurrections around the continent.

They were right for most parts of Africa but not for Botswana. Countries such as Sierra Leone, DRC, Central African Republic and others bore the brunt of fighting insurgency wars.  This is a topic for another day but we need to know that BDF immensely trained its officers and men on counter-insurgency. This training focused on defeating insurgents in the bush and it extended to urban warfare in case the insurgents chose to imbed themselves in build-up areas.

The cost of training was heavy. It entailed procurement of appropriate equipment for that kind of warfare. It is interesting that the possible source of such insurgency was focused to emanate from Botswana National Front which was the leading political party that advocated for socialism as the way of salvation for Botswana.

At the moment BDF find itself fighting another war, a war they have not been trained for with an elusive enemy that even defies definition. That is the war against crime. This domestic enemy has occupied the thoughts and minds of commanders and commissioners. Crime has become the number one public enemy. It occupies the minds of citizens regardless of their places of abode. In short, no one is immune from this vice.

The current proliferation of crime gives an indication that crime pays. There are several variables that place us where we are in terms of our crime levels. Regardless of that, crime has to be fought. BDF is totally ill-prepared to fight this war. In the first place, BDF soldiers have not been trained to deal with crime at all levels.

It is high time that BDF should focus on training its personnel in dealing with the common criminal on our streets. At the moment their little contribution to crime fighting is largely guided by police officers.BDF has a great potential in contributing in crime fighting. And the organisation holds a lot of potential in this area.

Recently, BDF has invested significantly in training its troops in unarmed combat. Unarmed combat training becomes very essential in crime fighting because it is some form of martial arts. In South Korea, it is a requirement that every member of the military who gets deployed along the De-militarised Zone (DMZ) in Panmunjom must be qualified in taekwondo.

At the moment BDF is the critical missing link in crime fighting in Botswana and government doesn’t seem to know this factor. With proper training and coordination with the police, this is one organisation that can help bring our crime levels to the lowest ebb. At the moment criminals still have so much regard for members of the military and we need to get this harnessed.

There is absolutely no reason why citizens have been turned into prisoners by criminal. Our homes resemble holding cells rather than places of abode for families. Every evening, citizens lock themselves up in these home-made prisons in fear of criminals. Until criminals are converted into prisoners, citizens will continue to reel in fear.

I cannot imagine that I am scripting this in 2016, a year which was supposed to have delivered to us as the Promised Land. We have moved as far away as we possibly can from the promise of a safe and secure nation. We now can only count ourselves as a nation under siege, a nation living in fear.

Criminals have altered our way of life. More and more people are found in our cities and towns over the Christmas holidays because they are keeping watch over their properties. However, the year 2016 should be our turning point in crime fighting.