Security Forces� Serious Crime Fighting Commendable

Monitor Editor | Monday December 12, 2016 12:41

It is not the first time that  our security forces had intercepted a similar move with all the characteristics of this very recent one.

This serious crime of peddling people, mainly children and young women, is what is commonly known as human trafficking.

Botswana being the doorway to South Africa from both the region and the entire Africa, cannot escape being targeted as the ideal passage for such illicit transactions. Botswana would in fact be a boiling pot of  such criminal activities by its  virtue as  the most central state bordering the lucrative South African market for such  illicit trade.

However the fact that the media continues to bear testimony to incidents of interceptions by the vigilant security units in this country is no doubt indicative of the commitment and hard work of the  Botswana  security forces in the midst of the ever escalating threats.

Indeed such incidents as witnessed at airports, women being used as Trojans to smuggle hard drugs, or at border gates, trucks being used as conduits for sneaking in and out  hard drugs, the sneaking of marijuana into the country from Swaziland, coupled with a new wave of motor vehicle syndicates targeting Mozambique and Namibian markets, or illicit trade in precious stones from Zimbabwe and DRC pose a serious threat of turning this country into a mafia state for drug lords, human traffickers, motor-vehicle theft syndicates within the twinkling of an eye.

We would need well-resourced, energised, and highly patriotic  security forces to continue to match the zeal of these criminal elements flooding in from all corners of our borders almost on a daily basis.

However, this is not to imply that our national budget should be obsessed or focused only on security spending at the neglect of other worthy causes, without negating the significance of a well capacitated security environment to cancel out and even disarm, defeat, annihilate enemy threats of all forms and shapes for the continued political and economic stability of a targeted state.