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SADC agree to commission of inquiry into recent turmoil in Lesotho

───   08:10 Sat, 04 Jul 2015

SADC agree to commission of inquiry into recent turmoil in Lesotho | News Article

Pretoria - Regional leaders decided at a summit in Pretoria on Friday night to establish an urgent independent commission of inquiry into the killing of Lesotho’s former army chief Brigadier Maaparankoe Mahao near Maseru eight days ago.

Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said after the summit of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) that the terms of reference of the commission of inquiry would include the question of whether the controversial current army commander General Tlali Kamoli should have been reappointed to his position earlier this year.
 
Lesotho opposition parties and many members of civil society have pointed fingers at Kamoli as being responsible for the death of Mahao and other violence. The two soldiers were bitter rivals.
 
When former Prime Minister Tom Thabane fired Kamoli as army commander on August 30 last year and replaced him with Mahao, Kamoli launched a coup attempt, forcing Thabane and his allies to flee to South Africa.
 
Thabane was restored to power with South African security force protection and South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa brokered a political accord which brought forward parliamentary elections from 2017 to February this year.
 
Mosisili’s coalition defeated Thabane’s and so Mosisili became the new prime minister. Ramaphosa also brokered a security accord which stipulated that Kamoli, Mahao and the police commissioner, a Thabane ally, should all be removed from their positions to depoliticise the security forces and stabilise Lesotho’s politics.
 
But Mosisili removed Mahao from his position and reappointed Kamoli as army chief after he won the February elections and many observers believe Kamoli launched a reign of terror against Thabane and his supporters, including the killing of a prominent funder of Thabane’s political party and then Mahao.
 
Mosilili, President Jacob Zuma, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe – the current Sadc chairperson,- Botswana President Ian Khama and representatives of Namibia and Malawi attended Friday’s summit of Sadc’s double troika, representing Sadc itself and its security organ.
 
It was called specifically to deal with the crisis in Lesotho sparked by the killing of Mahao and the flight from Lesotho of Thabane and the leaders of the country’s other two opposition leaders.
 
The summit leaders agreed not only on the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry – to be deployed “with immediate effect” – but also the establishment of an Oversight Committee to act as an early warning mechanism in the event of signs of instability in the country and to intervene where necessary.
 
Mosisili addressed journalists after the summit. He was asked to comment on the strong feeling from the opposition leaders and others that Kamoli would have to be removed from his post as army commander before stability could be restored to Lesotho.
 
He said one of the terms of reference of the commission would be to investigate the removal of Kamoli as commander of the defence force last year and his reinstatement to his position this year.
 
But the commission would also investigate the appointment of Mahao to replace Kamoli last year as well as his removal from the post this year.
 
Mosisili flatly denied suggestions that Lesotho’s political leaders had all agreed secretly when they signed Ramaphosa’s security accord last year that none of the three security chiefs who were moved from their posts should be re-instated.
 
Instead, he said the agreement had been that their positions would be addressed after a new government had been elected in February this year.
 
 
Mosisili said the commission of inquiry would sit in Maseru and would be chaired by a judge, from Botswana.
He added that its terms of reference would be broader than just investigating Mahao’s death.
 
The summit communiqué said that the Sadc leaders had urged the government of Lesotho and all political stakeholders to urgently undertake constitutional and security sector reform, assisted by Sadc. But it did not specify what these reforms should be.
 
ANA

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