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Botswana: This Moitoi is Toying With Our Democracy
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
EDITORIAL
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008
Minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi is rapidly turning herself into a by-word for a usurper of freedom of expression and other civil liberties. Just what is Venson-Moitoi trying to achieve?
We got a glimpse of what Venson-Moitoi is trying to achieve on the Botswana Television news broadcast on Wednesday. The whole broadcast was all about her as if she is the only news happening in Botswana.
We lost count of how many times she appeared on Venson-Moitoi's long reels, some of them repeated. After all she is the minister of communications and she can direct the Btv and the whole government broadcasting empire to force a diet of Venson-Moitoi on the nation.
It seems Venson-Moitoi will not stop at anything even if means usurping power from democratic institutions to selfishly nest her partisan political office. At the moment, Venson-Moitoi is engaged in a queer ego trip to put before parliament a Media Practitioners Bill which only compares to Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe's Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, an act that is responsible for information torture in Zimbabwe.
While the trend in the world is to allow the press to be independent from government control and to be regulated by a council that is made of representatives from the public, press and other stakeholders, Venson Moitoi wants to arrogate to herself the responsibility of appointing this council. God forbid!
We thought this should be easy for 'honourable Venson Moitoi to understand: The council cannot be free from her political interference when a politician appoints them. Already there is a self-regulatory mechanism in the form of the Press Council of Botswana in place. If there are deficiencies in this structure let us strengthen it rather than substituting it with the most draconian bill as conceptualised by our Venson-Moitoi.
This country has made tremendous gains in broadening our democracy and it would be tragic if we could allow a Venson-Moitoi to throw us back many light years into the dark ages.
We do not know much about Venson-Moitoi's democratic credentials except that she served government as a permanent secretary until she left at that dark period when corruption rocked the ministry that she led during Letsholo's BHC debacle. But for her to have been brought back into the big league we believe it is not out of friendship but because it is believed that she can advance democracy and this society.
Why is Venson-Moitoi smothering our expectations and killing our belief in Botswana as a truly democratic state? With impunity, the honourable Venson Moitoi is even deviating from the agreements and principles that were undertaken by a group that crafted the principles that would have led to a truly self-regulated structure, a structure, which she was part of.
President Khama told us on his inauguration that he is a democrat and we believe him. We do not think Khama is behind the Venson-Moitoi's bid to control the press and eventually control freedom of expression as Mugabe and other dictators of the world do.
Venson-Moitoi should be told in very clear terms that our adherence to democracy will not be made the subject of negotiation. We expect her to be advancing freedom of expression like bringing to parliament a freedom of information bill rather than the retrogressive charade that she is hooked on.
What a let down Venson Moitoi is proving to be!
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This Moitoi threatens our civil liberties. Let us stop her before she turns us into another Zimbabwe.
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