Africa-Press – Botswana. Another round of a heated verbal war erupted and rendered the meeting between the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Traditional Affairs and the residents of Lentswelemoriti virtually futile.
It was a no holds barred encounter between residents and a delegation from St. Engenas Zion Christian Church led by chairperson of the church’s council, Mr Piet Lekganyane. The encounter threatened to derail a meeting whose purpose was chiefly to discuss developmental issues as per the assistant minister’s deliberations.
At Lentswelemoriti, a private farm owned by the St. Engenas Z.C.C, resides some members of the church who fled religious persecution in Mochudi and Ramotswa in 1953. They have been staying there ever since then.
They now feel some unbreakable attachment to the place they call home although it is a private land whose title is in the hands of the church. Their stay in the farm, according to Mr Lekganyane, was supposed to be a temporary measure while awaiting the issues they fled from to subside. However, residents find Lentswelemoriti, home to about 242 inhabitants as per the 2022 population census, their permanent abode and would want to be consulted on every decision the church makes on its private land. As a result, residents requested a meeting with the Minister of Local Government and Traditional Affairs, Minister of Environment and Tourism, Minister of Lands and Agriculture together with the Minister for State President. Clearly, the residents stated their disdain for the Mr Lekganyane-led delegation, saying it was full of disrespect and overly arrogant. The same heated argument ensued in early April during a kgotla meeting addressed by the Member of Parliament for the area, Mr Taolo Lucas.
Residents fired salvos at Mr Lekganyane-led delegation and in retaliatory act, while refusing to apologise for ‘insulting statements’ attributed to him, threatened to evict them from the farm. At the core of the war are the residents’ calls to be consulted regarding developments in the church’s private farm, which they call their own village. However, the church’s delegation is unequivocal that the place is a freehold land where the members who fled religious persecution in Mochudi and Ramotswa were accorded refuge while awaiting the situation to subside. Having stayed for almost 72 years in the farm, Mr Lekganyane said it did not automatically make residents owners of the land and added that being allowed to hold meetings in the area should not confuse them to think they are a village.
While the assistant minister, a member of St. Engenas Z.C.C, Mr Ignatius Moswaane tried to steer clear of church’s politics and focus on the government’s business that led him to the ‘village’, residents accused him of taking sides especially when he suggested to them that young people willing to benefit from government programmes, such as Bonno Housing Scheme, should consider relocating to nearby Motlhabaneng. Some found it a ploy by government to help the church relocate them to Motlhabaneng and completely erase their history and culture of worship.
The assistant minister also faced accusations of potential match fixing. Some residents alleged that he met with public service employees and dikgosi to hatch a solid plan to oust them from the place they feel deeply connected to, spiritually and otherwise.
However, Mr Moswaane explained that his sole mission was to consult them on developments. To do so, he had to meet with the district leadership for some briefing and facts finding mission. “We’re fully aware of the status of this place as a privately owned property of the St. Engenas Zion Christian Church and hence we made an arrangement to meet with the district leadership where we invited the church’s representatives in order to discuss issues within their farm,” Mr Moswaane cleared and said the delegation would report contents of the meeting to the church. At the meeting with senior district officials, Mr Moswaane said, it was clear that government could not effect some developments in the area as it was privately owned and therefore needed approval from Moria.
He reminded the residents that he represented a human rights-centric government that respected the people’s rights to freedom of religion and belief and hence would respect their views regarding their association with the church.
However, the assistant minister informed residents that it was difficult to get the Botswana Power Corporation and Water Utilities Corporation rendering their services in plots without certificates. Only the church holds a title deed and hence even Bobonong Sub Land Board could not allocate them residential plots in the farm. He said there was an immediate assistance for those willing to relocate to Motlhabaneng, an announcement that elicited roaring disapproval from the residents.
However, Mr Moswaane said the assistance would not be coercion to those who intransigently wanted to remain in the farm. He however, warned that the government would be providing minimal services in the farm until an approval for more services had been hatched. “We could plead with government for a special dispensation where you would have your own ward and live separately, with own kgosi and identity in Motlhabaneng.
This is especially to the young ones who’d want to have their own plots and raise families. Of course, even the older ones could apply for plots, which would be inherited by your heirs upon death,” he said.
Despite the proposed ideas, some remained intransigent and called for developments in the church’s private land where it was made clear no such activities would be allowed.
Mr Batshedi Tsae, chairman of the village advisory committee, said such developments were blocked by the former minister, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi, whom Mr Lekganyane defended as carrying out the church’s commands. “In 2014, government wrote, requesting the church to bring electricity here, but Mr Molebatsi wrote back saying such a request could not be acceded to,” alleged Mr Tsae, who accused the church’s delegation of abhorring human rights.
He alleged that the delegation bred the feud between residents, who were members of the church, and Moria.
He also accused it of banning members who partake in airing their grievances through the ‘village’ structures from accessing the holy city of Moria. On the other hand was the senior priest, Mr Jebe Mogotsi who walked a tight rope and steered clear of the politics.
Mr Mogotsi is one of the first people to arrive in Lentswelemoriti, according to his account. “I can’t really engage in this matter because all I need is direction from the church and I follow it.
Where the route ends, my journey stops,” Mr Mogotsi said, and pledged to follow whoever has been bestowed the reins to lead the church. He, however, hoped that Mr Moswaane and the public officers would hatch a lasting solution to the problem.
On the side of the church, head of delegation, Mr Lekganyane threatened the residents with an eviction if they continued disrespecting the church. He also warned that, with powers he wielded, he could force residents to hold their kgotla meetings outside the farm.
To those who did not want him to attend the consultative meetings, he said, “At whose place? How can a visitor tell you that they don’t want you in your place?” He explicitly told the residents that his delegation would continually attend the kgotla meetings held at the farm without fail, reminding them that he did not need their invitation to attend the said meeting or even to visit the farm.
“They think by staying here they’re now a village and they think that when government officials come here to consult the they deserve that,” he said and reminded them that the church held the title deed and was at liberty to carry out developments in the farm without consulting them.
Such developments could even mean forcing them out of the farm.
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