SEMKBotswana - Documents

Annual reports

SEMK Annual Report 2024

The Botswanan student was with us from mid-February to mid-May. Many places in the Netherlands were visited, such as the plenary hall in the House of Representatives, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Sea Life Aquarium in Scheveningen, the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, Gassan diamond cutting factory in Amsterdam, and we walked along the Amsterdam canals. The student was invited by friends of ours to visit the Drents Museum in Assen, she took a ski lesson in SnowWorld in Zoetermeer. She used a laptop to read newspapers online and look up all kinds of information on the internet.
She was particularly impressed by the many buildings, houses, large shops, roads, trees and nature in general, the railway network, trains and buses. She was surprised that strangers spoke to each other in the street in a friendly manner.

The student and I spent a lot of time reading Botswana newspapers online and forwarding important articles from them. Unfortunately, it was not possible to renew my subscription to both newspapers, even after several attempts. I asked the newspapers for help with this via email. There was no answer. Too bad, because now I cannot read the weekly newspapers of Mmegi. And these often contained a lot of interesting news.

Also received many reports and accounts on matters concerning the Bushmen and relevant matters in southern Africa.

The run-up to the elections in Botswana on 30 October was particularly tense due to expected unrest. There was a persistent rumour about ritual murders for the purpose of witchcraft in order to manipulate the outcomes of business negotiations and political influence. People were warned by the African Union not to fall victim to this. It is unclear whether this practice is still used. Fights at the polling stations were also expected during the days of the elections.

However, these were particularly peaceful, the people were very happy. However, not the Botswana Democratic Party, which had been in power since independence in 1966. Their number of seats went from 36 to 4. The Umbrella for Democratic Change won and became the largest party. Duma Gideon Boko was elected President. One of the first things he did was to give permission to the family of Pitso Gaoberekwe, who had been waiting in a mortuary in Gaborone since December 2021 to be buried in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, to do so. See homepage.

During a visit by King Wilhelm Alexander to a prison museum in South Africa, the king was surprised by the protest of the San, Koison and another group of Bushmen, against the visit. This reminded the protesters of the violence that was committed by the Dutch during the colonization period. In a letter to King Willem Alexander I explained this to him, in case he did not know. And suggested that he apologize on behalf of his ancestors to the San, Koisan, and related groups in southern Africa.

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