AmaNdebele Threaten Secession from Botswana…and claim Bakalanga have no land in the North east District of Botswana!

Please note: AmaNdebele strictly means people of Nguni stock who crossed the Limpopo in the 1800s already called Matebele, from which comes the name AmaNdebele.

Really, what's the Problem with the Ndebele? They now want Secession from Botswana and guess what, they claim Bakalanga have no land! Guys, I don't hate Ndebeles but this is going just too far. By Ndebele I mean Nguni. See what this guy is doing in Botswana.

-----------------------

Mmegi Online

Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Issue: Vol.29 No.189

A man purporting to be the chief of aMandebele in Botswana is laying a claim to the North East District of Botswana (NEDB) as the homeland of aMandebele of Botswana and warns of serious consequences if allocation of plots there does not stop.

The man, Nhlanhla Simon, says Kgosi Maruje III of Masunga must get out of the way because on 1 February 2013, the aMandebele of Botswana will resume their chieftainship as a way to preserve their culture and heritage.

Among the consequences being threatened is UDI or secession into Zimbabwe's Matebeleland. The aMandebele chief has written letters to the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Peter Siele, the Minister of Lands and Housing, Lebonaamang Mokalake, and the representative of the North East at Ntlo ya Dikgosi, Kgosi Maruje III of Masunga about this claim.

In a letter dated 10 December 2012, Simon warns Mokalake to stop allocating land in the North East District. He says the land was stolen from his people by Tati Company (TC), acting in conjunction with the Bechuanaland government, in 1911.

"Therefore by virtue it belongs to (the) tribe of aMandebele of Botswana," he writes. "Any allocation of plots/land after you have received this letter will be considered illegal and invalid until further notice in which the tribe of aMandebele of Botswana will have a right to take them back."

According to Simon, Tati Company was given mining rights in 1888 by aMandebele which had a 25-year lease that ended in 1913.

"After the death of Matebele elders from 1893 to 1915 due to (the) war between British South Africa Company and Matebele, Tati Company saw that manpower was lost hence loss of knowledge in aMandebele side," he writes further.

"It therefore used that opportunity to steal Matabeleland by illegal annexing the land between Shashe River and Ramakgwebane River into Bechuanaland with intention to defraud the tribe of aMandebele as it knew that it was impossible for the incoming generation to have knowledge about the land.

"The Tati Company allowed settlements like Masunga, Sinyawe, Siviya and many others without preventing them or advising those squatters about consequence of illegal occupation of the land. In addition to that it started to sell land to individuals, organisations and government.

"Government of Botswana provided lucrative market to those fraudsters like buying places like Gerald Estates and Tati Siding and

many others, hence she had clear conscience about the origin of land and even did so without consulting the tribe of aMandebele of Botswana in which to us it have proven without reasonable doubt that government of Botswana looked down upon the tribe of aMandebele of Botswana."

Simon says he and his people consider any development or settlement in NEDB and Francistown after 1888 as illegal and invalid because there was no consultation of aMandebele at all.

The only development they can accept for now is the road that links Tonota and Francistown. Three options are outlined for the North East District. The first is restoration of their bogosi (chieftainship) and thus recognition of the people as aMandebele of Botswana. The second entails UDI - a unilateral declaration of independence for the North East District. The third involves the territory being integrated into Zimbabwe's Matabeleland.

"But as for now we have chosen an option to be given our chieftainship and be respected by Government of Botswana, hence be recognised as tribe of Amandebele of Botswana by government of Botswana pending on negotiations with Government of Botswana," Simon writes.

"As the tribe of aMandebele of Botswana, we call upon the Government of Botswana to give us (the) respect we deserve as it does with other tribes in Botswana and stop undermining the tribe of aMandebele of Botswana's integrity and intelligence."

Another letter advises Kgosi Maruje III to stop calling himself a chief in NEDB because the territory belongs to aMandebele of Botswana and not the Kalanga people.

In this letter, which is dated 5 December 2012, Simon says he is the rightful chief of NEDB.

If, the letter continues, there is any validity to the claim that Maruje is the chief of Bakalanga, the claim can be fulfilled in Central North Botswana, a territory described as stretching from Mathangwane to Nata and its environs.

"The boundary between Central District Botswana and North East Botswana is Shashe River," says Simon. He writes to Kgosi Maruje:

"So as (the) tribe of Amandebele, we give you up to 30 January 2013 for you to get out of your idea of calling yourself chief in my territory. Continuing calling yourself chief in my territory will be considered as a threat and action of war against the Chief of Amandebele of Botswana and his tribe, in which the tribe of Amandebele of Botswana have right to respond to."

Simon has authoring these letters and dispatching them to Siele, Mokalake and Maruje but says he has not received any response to them.

Contacted, Siele said he (was) not aware of the letter while Maruje would not comment. Mokalake could not be reached for comment as his phone went unanswered.

--------------------

I may agree with this guy on North-East becoming part of Zimbabwe (as it was before Lobengula sold it to the Tati Concessions in 1911), but not as "Ndebele Land"!

Comments

  1. Unknown30 August 2016 at 00:49

    I prefer to break new ground, but it gets harder and harder with the
    territory that's already been walked on. See the link below for more info.

    #territory
    www.ufgop.org

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete List of Nguni Surnames or Clan Names

Following is a list of all Nguni groups in general, including amaZulu, amaHlubi, amaSwati, amaNdebele (north and south) and partly amaXhosa. This list was forwarded to me by e-mail by one Mthombeni in June 2012, stating that they are “all the Nguni” surnames, including Swati, Zulu, Ndebele, and some Shangaan. To avoid tempering too much with the list, I have left it almost as it was sent to me, leaving all the various repetitions in place. Those surnames we already know to be of Bukalanga or are names of animals or body parts are marked with an asterisk (*). They comprise about 3% of the list, and about 2.1% on the Xhosa list, showing a non-Nguni origin.  See The Historiography of Southern Africa: Proceedings of the Experts Meeting held at Gaborone, Botswana from 7 to 11 March, 1977 , “ On the other hand one is struck by the fact that all these other groups observe totems to mark descent, and the Nguni, as a rule, do not ” (Unesco 1980: Online). The list goes as follows: [Please...
Read more

On the Moyo-Lozwi or Rozvi: Are they Kalanga or Shona?

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can only be maintained for such a time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of that lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Chief. The Questions of Identity - are the Moyo Kalanga or Shona ? One of the biggest questions of identity dogging Zimbabwe today, especially in Matebeleland, the Midlands and the Maswingo Provinces is that of the people that bear the Moyo surname. It is very common to hear the phrase, “vele bonke oMoyo ngama Shona.” Yet on the other hand in Mashonaland and Maswingo, one also hears those Moyo people, the Lozwi, or as they are known there, the Rozvi, arguing that they are a people of Kalanga stock. Of course no c...
Read more

Rebuilding the Great Nation of Bukalanga: The Twelve Tribes of Bukalanga Re-Discovered and Redefined

The Rev. G. H. Cullen Reed of the London Missionary Society station in Bulalima [Bulilima], in Matabeleland, who has labored for some years among the Makalanga of that district writes: In all descriptions of the Makalanga it must be carefully borne in mind that there is no tribe, existing as one, which bears this name, but the people to whom it is applied consist of many tribes having their own peculiar traditions and customs more or less allied, but with considerable differences most confusing to the enquirer - Richard Nicklin Hall and W. G. Neal 1904. The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia: Monomotapae Imperium. After almost two centuries of subjugation, suppression and distortion of our history, identity, languages and cultures, it is only right that we begin a book of this kind with a redefinition of who we are and what ethnolinguistic groups constitute the Nation that we call Bukalanga. It is no doubt one of the great tragedies of our time that for the 33 years of Zimbabwean history, ...
Read more