[A Reader in Botswana sent me this article showing how South African crime is now spreading into Botswana. Botswana is also suffering from crime that comes in from Zimbabwe. Botswana has a small population compared to its neighbours. I expect the situation in Botswana to get worse as the madness of its neighbours impacts it more severely in the years ahead. Botswana is the only pro-Capitalist nation in the region and the only American ally. Jan]

Hereunder is an extract from the Botswana Gazette dated 4 May, 2005 under
editor’s comment.

Our borders are becoming too porous.

Lately the number of incidents of cross border crime seem to have gone
through the roof and demonstrates how porous our borders are. We have
members of our armed forces, the Botswana Defence Force as well as the
Special Support Group and – we understand members of Military Intelligence – deployed on the borders to help detect and fight crime. However, not a week passes without cases of armed robberies and car hijackings committed by people who are suspected to be foreigners especially from South Africa.

Incidents where people are attacked in their homes, get beaten up
mercilessly and end up losing their money and cars to thugs are slowly
making Botswana an unsafe place. One wonders where the suspected twelve
would be robbers who were arrested in Lobatse early this year crossed with
such heavy ammunition? What if they robbed someone before they were
arrested?

One wonders what the members of the armed forces that are supposed to be
patrolling the borders are doing if criminals can come in and out of the
country every time they so wish and leave with a stolen vehicle. If it is an issue of shortage of man power then that should be said out so that
government can be pressurised to do something about it.

For heaven’s sake we have many soldiers who are trained every year and as
much as we appreciate that they have other duties we feel that they should
be fully utilised to help fight crime. We applaud the BDF [Botswana Defence Force] for taking a positive step by deploying soldiers in roadblocks but we feel the criminals strategy has now changed and focus should be now on the borders. More soldiers and police officers should be trained, armed and set to patrol our borders. This is the best place to stop these vicious criminals before they can get into our towns and cities.

Batswana are on he verge of losing their precious lives to these merciless
thugs who dispossess them of their hard earned money and cars. If this is
not addressed as an emergency situation then Botswana will soon become a
haven for international criminals and Batswana will also lose confidence in our security forces. We have such a small population that is far less than Soweto and Harare but crime seem to be overwhelming us.

Early this year hijacking of 4X4 pick ups was on the rise and some of the
cars are suspected to have gone as far as Mozambique and Democratic Republic of Congo. If people can come all the way from Malawi, DRC or Angola even South Africa and Zimbabwe to come and hijack a car in Botswana then it means the environment is too friendly for them. How many people in these countries drive luxurious cars that these thugs come for in Botswana? Surely they are more than us.

However, we must congratulate the military intelligence for acting swiftly
last week in dealing with the five suspected robbers. Two of the five
hijackers were killed after an exchange of fire and this clearly shows that if our armed forces could react quickly and intensify patrols and always keep their ears on the ground then criminals would eventually find Botswana unfriendly to their operations.