How to steal a fourteen thousand (14000) hectares ranch
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 ...