Lesotho threatens to deploy army against criminal gangs, but opposition says it is ‘extreme’

Lesotho Prime Minister Sam Matekane. (Amanuel Sileshi/AFP)

• Prime Minister Sam Matekane wants the military to be deployed in civilian communities.
• Major General Matela Matobakele warned judges not to give light sentences to gang members.
• Opposition parties and civil society organisations argue that deploying military personnel for police duties would lead to human rights violations.

Opposition parties and civil society organisations in Lesotho are at loggerheads with Prime Minister Sam Matekane and Major General Matela Matobakele of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) after the two men threatened to deploy the military to carry out policing duties.

Last week, Matekane and Matobakele spoke at Ratjomose Barracks to a contingent of military personnel returning from Mozambique’s oil and gas-rich Cabo Delgado province, where they were part of a SADC Standby Force.

In his speech, Matekane urged Matobakele to “send out these men and women (soldiers) to comb the villages” to tackle criminal gangs.

Matekane also said he had given Matobakele the mandate to “do everything in his power to ensure that peace returns to Lesotho” because he had seen how the military behaved in Mozambique and that it should act in the same way as it did in the fight against Islamic extremists in Cabo Delgado.

Matobakele demanded in May this year that the legislature consider declaring a three-month state of emergency to allow the military to halt the widespread killings in the country.

According to the World Population Review, Lesotho is among the six countries with the highest murder rates in the world.

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The cold-blooded murder of a mother and her two children in Mahloenyeng on the outskirts of Maseru in May has gripped the country. Three people are currently in custody.

Matobakele said on the same occasion that judges who were lenient with criminals should be “visited and feel with their skin the pain of the victims of these criminals”.

He also called them ‘pushy judges’.

Threat to human rights

But Machesetsa Mofomobe, the leader of the Basotho National Party (BNP), said Matekane was “reckless and extreme” in calling on the military to target civilians in the same way it has targeted Islamist extremists in Mozambique.

He said:

“We are talking about the threat to civil liberties, rights and the taking of lives and lifelong disabilities as we have seen recently in such forays by our national army,” he wrote in a letter to the prime minister.

Mofomobe suggested that instead of deploying the army, the government should equip the Lesotho Mounted Police.

“While there is nothing wrong with using the armed forces to safeguard internal stability and maintain law and order within the established frameworks, there is an urgent need to strengthen and reinforce the police in all aspects, including manpower, resources and intelligence. There is also an urgent need to promote cooperation among the security services without fueling mutual disdain and strengthen their oversight, including institutional legislative bodies and civil society,” he said.

Supporters of the supremacy of the Constitution, also known as Article 2, said the prime minister and army commander “are not only undermining the rule of law, but also threatening the foundations of our democracy and the fundamental human rights of all people”.

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They argued that the government should not use war tactics against civilians.

“Lesotho is not engaged in a war nor is it dealing with extremism like that in Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique.

“Such inflammatory rhetoric is both unfounded and dangerous as it fosters an environment of fear and instability. The Prime Minister must maintain peace through legitimate and democratic means, not through militaristic and authoritarian threats,” their statement read.

In 2018, Matobakele concluded at a seminar of SADC military experts in Lesotho that the military had terrorised Basotho for the past four years.

Civil society pleaded with him not to let the country return to its violent past.

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