It's Aluta Continua for land petitioners

OARABILE MOSIKARE
Staff Writer | Tuesday May 14, 2013 00:00

 

Writing on their Facebook page yesterday, Moalosi says the past few months have been challenging because his pressure group did not receive a response from any of several doors it had thus far knocked on.'We waited for quite a considerable time while constantly following up with our request to hand (over) the petition to government,' he wrote. 'All the while, it really depresses as we observed that there looked to be no hope for us. 'The last door we knocked on about a month ago was Parliament where we wrote (to) the Speaker with the hope of addressing our legislatures (sic) on this very Land and Housing crisis.

'The response there is that Parliament will only reconvene in July, not knowing whether they will give us a slot. We hope this is in order as the Legislators are expected to convey our needs and challenges at that level and can help us persuade government to attend to this crisis urgently. 'But we are determined, with your support to continue with this noble quest. We have and will continue to volunteer our time, finances and all to see Batswana win this battle.  'We have in the past called two meetings in Gaborone which were poorly attended and going forward, we urge you all to own this battle as it is not ours alone but a national battle for our land.

Do whatever you can in your locality to sensitise other Batswana about this crisis and rally them behind this effort.'Moalosi says considering their lack of money and the need for a countrywide campaign, they consider it in order to seek help from sympathetic organisations. Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) and Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) are named among organisations that have come on board a national campaign for land. Moalosi says it is lamentable that NGOs approached are not coming forward.

'As mentioned earlier, the next phase calls for mass public campaigns (rallies, kgotla meetings, house-to-house) around every corner of Botswana and we hope to achieve this with the support of the partners on board and your support as Batswana,' he wrote on Facebook. 'We will be meeting with our partners in the coming week to strategise and map a plan of action for this next phase.'