LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE #22 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE/LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE/LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE Edition #22 10 June 1999 Subscribe to Lesotho News Online A bi-monthly update of news from the Kingdom of Lesotho! LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE is written by journalists living in Lesotho and brings you the news from their point of view. It is assembled and edited by Africa News Network, part of South Africa Contact, the former anti-apartheid movement in Denmark. LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE is one of our individual newsletters, and together with those from Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi, provides up to date news through our established network of journalists in Southern Africa. These newsletters will be followed, in the very near future, by news updates from other countries in the region. LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE is brought to you through a co-operation between Africa News Network, South Africa Contact and Inform, Denmark's leading alternative information network. ********************************** Features 1. DEBATE ON ELECTORAL SYSTEM CONTINUES 2. THEY MAY SMILE AT YOUR BABY GIRLS, BUT BEWARE News stories; 1. GOVERNMENT REFORMS CIVIL SERVICE 2. STREET VENDORS RESIST COUNCILS ORDERS 3. GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHES INVESTMENT FUND 4. DEPUTY PRIME MINISTERS ASSASSINS IN COURT AT LAST 5. GOVERNMENT TO REOPEN DIAMOND MINE FEATURES; 1. Debate on electoral system continues Debate is getting more and more heated in Lesotho about what electoral model to be followed as a way of getting the kingdom out of political impasse. Following a formal debate which was held through a consultative forum recently, the debate has now extended out into the public and it has reached its apex with political parties scrambling to convince the nation with the system that will suit their (political parties) self-interest. While the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) supports the status quo, of the Westminster model, the main opposition, the Basotho National Party (BNP), is calling for 100 percent proportional representation. Both bulls have the support of the smaller parties with majority on the side of the ruling party. While these could be seen as an advantage on the side of the ruling party, the paradox of Lesothos democracy is that the opposition has more strength than the ruling party. Not because it enjoys a lot of popular support, but because it has gains its strength from the powerful institutions such as the civil service, the armed forces, the business community and the intellectuals as well as the independent media. It is because of this strategic support that the BNP is dark or blue, by hook or by crook, the country will follow the proportional system in the coming elections due to be held in May next year. The secretary general for the BNP, Majara Molapo, says proportional representation, which is followed by South Africa, is a perfect and pre-requisite electoral system for Basothos peace and stability as a small nation surrounded by South Africa. He says the proportional representation, which must be conducted on the basis of district constituencies, will make sure that every citizen participate in a democracy. This system works perfectly in countries like Israel and Spain, he reasons. What Molapo is saying is in direct contrasts with what Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili thinks about the proportional representation. ...This system is undemocratic as it deprives the electorate the right to choose the candidate of their own from the people they know very well at their constituency level. Political parties impose candidates upon the electorate, says Mosisili. But to this, Molapo says:  For almost 33 post-colonial years, our countrys history has been a story of human experience, a protracted history of socio-economic uncertainty, political decline and abuse of human life,  he said. Molapo explained that the Proportional Representation (RP) was a name given to forms of participatory democracy and systems of voting that were deliberately designed to ensure that as far as practicable, different shades of opinions in a country all receive a fair representation proportionate to their relative popular support nationwide. There are four variants of PR used worldwide, the Party list system, the Cumulate vote, Limited vote and the Non party List preferential vote, he said. He added that since independence, the country had always settled for the most common form of executive democracy, the West-Minister Parliamentary Model. He said in this model, the leader of the largest party becomes the Prime Minister. Voting, he says, take place in single member constituencies and to win, a candidate only requires a plurality. Hence a candidate can easily win a seat with less than 50 percent out of the total vote, he noted. Molapo added: The popular West-Minister Parliamentary model as it is the case in Great Britain (BG), works only to the advantage of the Labour and Conservative Parties and discriminates against third parties such as the Liberals and others who either receive few seats or none in relation to the proportion of the national vote they poll. He said this was electoral system that but for brief 1986 to 1993 military dictatorship had so much continually dominated Lesothos politics. We are trying to delineate to the people how PR works and that despite the Prime Ministers statement, their constituencies will still be there, Molapo noted adding that it was the only system that would ensure that every party was represented in parliament. Molapo said the model would also give private candidates a chance to have seats in parliament. We are trying to democratise the system of voting, but there are people out there who want to continue to monopolize it, he noted. 2. They may smile at your baby girls, but beware Men, their fathers, may really like them or pretend to love them. But some mothers are now really wondering whether to leave their baby-girls with their husbands ... for cases show that men have become hungry hyenas who devour whatever comes their way in order to satisfy their sex lust; even their own daughters. Cases of children raped by their own fathers increase almost every year while those of children raped by neighbours or strangers increase everyday. The police records show this. The police commanding the Maseru Central Police Station, Major Mathato Ranko, says the actual problem haunts the children for the rest of their lives when men deny responsibility. She says even though rape cases involving children, especially by their fathers, are rarely reported to the police they are many in the villages because mothers who fear to expose their families to disgrace keep them secret. We are currently dealing with two cases. One involves an eight year old while the other one involves a four year old, she said. The two cases are among many similar cases most of which were never reported to the police or any family elder. The most outstanding case in the country is that of a seven-year-old Mamokhethi Malebane, who was raped and killed by a family friend to hide evidence. Police have discovered stunning justifications from men who rape young girls. Some men claimed to have raped young girls at the directives of their traditional doctors who told them that young girls purify an AIDS infected man. The counselor for the AIDS Programme in the Ministry of Health, Agnes Mongoako, warns those who harbour this belief that apart from committing serious crime they are spreading AIDS to innocent children. Women and children rights activists have appealed to the government to strengthen the law enforcement against the child abusers. The government must make sure that Article One of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is implemented, says the Federation of Women Lawyers. The Convention classifies a child as every human being below the age of 18 years. Article 19 of the convention says states parties should take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligence treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse. The researcher for the Women in Law in Southern Africa, Puleng Letuka, says children are raped by the adults they know and who always pretend to be friendly to them like their fathers. Asked about what mothers should do to protect their children against the rapists, she says mothers should teach children not to trust anybody from an early age. They must also avoid taking gifts. NEWS STORIES; 1. Government reforms the civil service Following the 1998 political impasse sparked by the election crisis, the government complained that had it not been because of the politically biassed civil servants towards the opposition, the government would not have collapsed. The government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili was brought to a stand still by the opposition protesters who rejected election results on grounds that they had been rigged in favour of the ruling party. All government offices were abruptly closed. No parliament sitting nor the cabinet sitting. The government operations were only brought back to normal after the intervention of the South African-led SADC forces. We want those civil servants who joined the protesters to voluntarily resign because they will lose all their benefits if they are fired, said the minister of Foreign Affairs, Tom Thabane. Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili has also hit hard at disloyal civil servants saying they must be careful that they serve the government of the day. No civil servant has volunteered to resign voluntarily and this has put the government head on with the opposition which dissuade civil servants against resigning. The opposition argues that the government has no powers to expel a civil servant just because he was seen at an opposition protest. The government however ignored the objection and singled out the targeted civil servants who were summarily dismissed. They took the government to courts and the government paid millions of money in compensation which it could not have lost ad it kept the civil servants in service. Realising that the government is losing financially, Prime Minister Mosisili has backed off. Now the song is the restructuring of the civil service. Experts have advised that instead of firing them, the civil servants need to be retrained to understand their role pertaining the government of the day even if it is run by the party they do not belong to. There are a series of training for the top, the middle and the lower civil servants with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The government secretary, Mohlbi Tsekoa, told the civil servants: The government depends on senior officials dedication and sense of duty to successfully face the challenges brought about by the new demands within an ever-changing environment a the local, regional and international levels. Courage, strength, determination and willingness to lead and manage will usher us into the new millennium with confidence to manage the 21st century. Rededicate yourselves to the service of the Basotho nation. 2. Street vendors resist councils orders Street vendors in Maseru have unanimously agreed to defy the Maseru City Council (MCC)order of removing their shacks from the main streets. The vendors spokesperson, Malebohang Rapopo, argues that the only option for the vendors if they are removed from the streets is to steal. This is where we ave business, how can the CC remove the poor were it is possible fro them to struggle for survival! They must chase the criminals away from the streets rather than the people who make ends meet by fair means. The MCC public relations, Tsepo Mareka, says the shacks are being removed because they are a sorry sight in the main streets. We are not removing them permanently. We just want to put them in an organised manner with more eye delight shacks, he says. He says the MCC is intending to buy beautiful shacks and rent them out to the vendors. But street vendors argue that those modern shacks are going to be very expensive for them. In the meantime, the removal order has been put to a hold while the two parties are negotiating. 3. Government establishes investment fund The government of Lesotho has commissioned two consultants from the British firm, Crown Agents, to design an investment fund to facilitate Basothos participation in the privatisation process. The government is engaged into a wholesale privatisation programme started five years ago. The opponents of the programme from the trade unions and the university argue that it is not for the benefit of Basotho because they cannot afford to buy the companies on privatisation nor even buy shares. They argue, therefore, that only the foreigner will benefit. The purpose of the investment fund, which came as a response to the criticism, is to provide a mechanism through which the government owned shares in profit making companies could be sold to the public in a regulated manner, which provides sufficient protection to the Basotho investors. The experts have recommended that the trust be set as a unit trust. The unit trust will be run by a trustee, a private sector manager, who will use cash from the public to invest in a mixture of investments. 4. Deputy prime ministers assassins in court at last Assassins of the Deputy Prime Minister Selometsi Baholo, who was killed by the rebellious Lesotho army, have been arrested. The late Baholo was assassinated by the army in 1994. He was the deputy prime minister and minister of finance. The army was on strike demanding 100 percent salary increase. At the peak of the strike, the army went on rampage and one Thursday morning his house surrounded by a battalion with armoured cars. He was ordered to come out and when he refused his house was demolished, killing him inside. At least five junior soldiers are now behind the bars and the top army officers say they are continuing with some investigations which might lead to more arrests in the army. 5. Government to reopen diamond mine The government of Lesotho has signed an agreement with JCI Projects of South Africa and Letseng Diamond for the reopening of the Letseng-la-terai diamond mine in the mountainous district of Mokhotlong. The mine was closed in 1982 due to the fall of the value of diamonds in the world market. It had only operated for five years since 1977. It is expected that the reopening of the mine will cut unemployment by at least 10 percent. The unemployment rate in Lesotho is estimated at 50 percent. ******************************** LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE/LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE/LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE A bi-monthly update of news from Lesotho! If you would like to receive more information about LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE, about Africa News Network, about our other newsletters or upcoming newsletters, please send an E-mail to: AfricaNN@inform-bbs.dk We can also be contacted by fax and by phone at: Fax: + 45 35 35 43 32 Phone:+ 45 35 35 96 32 Letters to the editor can be sent to: editor@inform-bbs.dk (Mary Tingay) If you know of anyone else who might be interested in subscribing to LESOTHO NEWS ONLINE, please let us know and tell them about us! 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