Shashe

 Mindful of the great extent to which the British Colonial administration seems to have gone to obscure the beacon positions of Hubona Nshakazhogwe’s ranch, I am constrained to describe in any detail, the actual position of Hubona Nshakazhogwe’s stolen ranch.  Suffice it to say that the British referred to the ranch as Nshakazhogwe ranch.  Needless to say, that ranch is nowhere to be found on official Botswana Government maps. Instead a FAKE “Nshakazhogwe ranch” now appears, well to the north of what the British can surely identify as the correct position of the genuine Nshakazhogwe ranch. The genuine Nshakazhogwe ranch lies between the two latitudes (20 degrees 48.996 minutes South) and (21 degrees 01.460 mintues South). The FAKE “Nshakazhogwe ranch” has been drawn on the official Botswana Government’s  1: 1000 000 map, between the latitudes (20 degrees 42.162 minutes South) and (20 degrees 46.486 minutes South). Just like the stolen, genuine Nshakazhogwe ranch, the...

Stealing fourteen thousand hectares of pristine, flat, productive land may seem hard to accomplish, but not if the thief is a government, and the owner of the land is illiterate. As our country’s sixtieth Independence anniversary approaches, one family sees it as yet another milestone in their forced deprivation. Hubona Nshakazhogwe was a peasant in colonial Bechuanaland Protectorate, who sued Chief Khama iii following the chief’s despatch of a regiment to assault, and if necessary, kill him in or around the year 1914. Hubona won the suit on appeal to the British Privy Council, and was compensated with the 14000 hectares of land. That land has now been stolen.  To be fair to the ruling Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) party, which came to power only in 2024 after fifty eight (58) years of rule by the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) , the UDC had nothing to do with the said theft. The theft was entirely the work of the BDP government. But conventional wisdom, and even the legal ...