Africa-Press – Lesotho. THE National Reforms Authority (NRA) has distanced itself from the National Peace and Unity Bill 2021 that will have powers to pardon human rights violators.
Speaking at a meeting organised by the Transformation Resource Centre (TRC) on Tuesday, NRA CEO Mafiroane Motanyane said the Bill is not a product of the NRA.
“We have not adopted any position on the Bill,” Motanyane said. He said the NRA is not seeking the public’s opinion on the Bill because it is not currently on their desk.
Motanyane said the NRA’s mandate is to promote consensus on reforms to ensure there is long-term reconciliation. He said their goal is to build a structure that will promote peace.
Motanyane said “the question of peace is much bigger and we know that the NRA cannot implement it alone but with all stakeholders”. “During the dialogues there was never a time when the issue of a Transitional Justice Commission was raised,” he said.
Motanyane said attempts by the NRA to have a stakeholder meeting to deliberate on the issue of peace architecture that has a “Transitional Justice Commission” component failed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said the issue of peace should be approached with care adding it must include all the stakeholders. Former government spokesman, Nthakeng Selinyane, said the government just has to “facilitate the process not to be hands-on on the TJC like it is doing now”.
He said the SADC facilitator, Justice Dikgang Moseneke, “should follow the rules” and the government should not allow him “to breach the procedures that need to be followed”.
“This is a tragedy that we are having now,” Selinyane said. Selinyane stated that “the Bill does not say there is no peace in Lesotho”. Basotho have never asked for the JTC, he said.
He said the government feared telling Justice Moseneke where he is going wrong. According to him, “Moseneke is rushing things without the necessary consultations”.
“The Bill is for the perpetrators not the victims of the heinous acts,” he said.
Former Justice Minister Professor Nqosa Mahao, now leader of the Basotho Action Party (BAP), said normally transition is done where there were conflicts or even dictatorships.
Professor Mahao said “what happened was just impunity”. “Lesotho is not in a conflict, Moseneke’s issues must be looked into before it is too late,” Professor Mahao said.
“This issue of reconciliation does not make sense. Reconciliation must be between the victims and perpetrators,” he said.
“In this incident the victims are being pushed into agreeing with the TJC.
” Mahao said they are being threatened that SADC will ban them if they do not agree to the Commission. Professor Mahao’s brother, Lieutenant General Maaparankoe Mahao, was killed by the army as he was on the way from his farm in Mokema in 2015.
Political scientist Dr Khabele Matlosa, who has written extensively on transitional justice for both the United Nations and African Union, said the Peace and Unity Bill is important and has a lot of legal or litigation implications for Lesotho.
Dr Matlosa said Justice Moseneke is a facilitator but his role is not clear even on the issue of who he reports to. “Facilitation and mediation are not the same, I think the issue should be clarified,” Dr Matlosa said.
He said Justice Moseneke and Jeff Radebe seemed to come to Lesotho interchangeably while playing the facilitation role. “Nobody knows what capacity Minister Radebe came,” he said.
He said President Cyril Ramaphosa should be the one reporting to SADC rather than Justice Moseneke doing so “because Ramaphosa is the head that appointed Moseneke to help while he was busy”.
Matlosa said “the Bill will be an early Christmas (present) for the perpetrators” adding that “reconciliation needs to be balanced between the victims and perpetrators”.
He argued that the state wants to pardon the perpetrators yet reconciliation can only happen between perpetrators and victims, “not the government pardoning perpetrators on behalf of victims, worse if the victims were never consulted”.
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