Long-buried racist scandal surfaces

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 17

Long-buried racist scandal surfaces

DENIS HERBSTEIN

reports from Gaborone on the devious role played by Britain’s

nost-war Labour Government in the barring from the Bangwato tnrone or aeretbe Khama, later to become the respected Prime Minister of Botswana, because of his marriage to a white British woman.

When a Labour Government exiled Seretse Khama, chief-de-signate of the Bangwato people in British Bechuanaland, because of his marriage to a Caucasian British woman, it became one of the hottest stories of the early 19505. Khama and his wife, the former Ruth Williams, only returned from exile in 1956, and. a decade later he was to become the respected president of the independent state of Botswana. Now it can be revealed, through papers made available at the British Public Record Office, that members of the Government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee behaved deceitfully and told outright lies to explain the Seretse Khama banning. The story is told by Neil Parsons, an Englishman employed by the Botswana Society in Gaborone. It helps explain the difficulty British Ministers still have in dealing with the Government of South Africa. A later Conservative Government feared that Khama’s return could result in economic sanctions by South Africa against the then High Commission Territories (now Bechuanaland, Swaziland, and Basutoland). Seretse Khama married Ruth Williams while he was studying in London, and without consultation with his uncles back home — notably Tshekedi Khama, who had acted as regent of the Bangwato since 1926. Seretse was ordered to divorce his new wife or never inherit the throne. But after three meetings of the Kgotla, the town forum of Serowe, the Bangwato capital, Seretse won the support of the commoners who acclaimed him king. Tshekedi and 42 disaffected headmen prepared to go into exile, but before the coronation could take place, the Attlee Government appointed a judicial inquiry into the affair under the colonial judge, Walter Harragin. The report was never published and was placed in safe keeping under the 30-year rule covering certain sensitive documents. When the documents became available, it became clear thatHarragin found that the Kgotla was properly convened and thus able to make a legal choice on the succession, and that Seretse was "a fit and proper person to discharge the functions of chief.” None of this was made public, but the Government did make the most of Harragin’s third finding: "His (Seretse’s) recogni-

tion will undoubtedly cause disruption in the tribe.” In February, 1950, Seretse was summoned to London for consultation at the Commonwealth Relations Office. When he refused to abdicate, he was barred from the chieftainship and exiled from Bechuanaland for five years. As if to show its evenhandedness, Tshekedi was also barred from being chief, and the job was. given to a British district commissioner. Parsons says that because it could not disclose the reasons for exiling Seretse, the Government remained “extremely mealymouthed. Everyone knew at the time that it had to be the British Government giving way to settler pressure in the Union of South Africa, and possibly Southern Rhodesia.” Yet when the Commonwealth Relations Minister, Patrick Gor-don-Walker, assured the House of Commons in March, 1950, that “we have had no communication from the Government of the Union nor have we made any communication to them,” he told an outright lie. The truth is, says Parsons, “that the South African High

Commissioner in London had run to the Commonwealth Relations Office on the instructions of his Prime Minister (Dr D. F. Malan) four days after Seretse Khama was acclaimed chief. He told the Commonwealth Secretary, Philip Noel-Baker, of his Government’s “earnest request that Seretse should not be recognised as chief.” From the start says Parsons, the Labour Cabinet was “fed with alarmist notions of “possible forcible action, including military Invasion, by “extremists in the Union, and the greater threat of South Africa declaring itself a republic and breaking away from the British Commonwealth. Even so, when Attlee received the Harragin report he pointed out that “to go contrary to the desires of the great majority of the tribe, solely because of the attitude of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, is as if we had been obliged to agree to Edward VIITs abdication so as not to annoy the Irish Free State and the U.S.A.” But the third level of influence on the Labour cabinet by-passed even Malan. There was a “conspiracy of interests” between the

South African opposition Uhited Party under General Jan Smuts and the Commonwealth Office. Thus D. D. Forsyth, South African Secretary for External Affairs and Malan’s personal secretary, was instructed by Smuts (under whom he had previously served) to tell the British Government that recognition of Seretse “would provoke such a public outcry among whites that the National Party (of Malan) would be strengthened over the United Party” and republican extremists under J. G. Strydom would overthrow Malan. Sir Evelyn Baring, the British High Commissioner, passed on Forsyth’s views to London, where it “led to a fluster of racist sentiment in the Commonwealth Relations Office,” says Parsons. Patrick Gordon-Walker suggested that all African chiefs should be barred by law from having “white wives.” ’ Baring revealed a conversation with Smuts: “The Government (of Malan) would call a snap election if Seretse were let back, and would sweep the board on the twin issues of incorporating the High Commission Territories and seceding from the Commonwealth as a republic.” The point, as Parsons says, was that Smuts was regarded by the British, up to his death in 1950, as the natural leader of South Africa, and the United Party as its natural Government. The fear of South African opinion was reiterated by Lord Ismay, Commonwealth Secretary when the Conservatives returned to power in 1951. South Africans were very sensitive and emotional over racial purity, he told the Cabinet To let Seretse return, even as a commoner, could result in “economic sanctions,” by South Africa against the High Commission Territories and “we would probably lose the territories.” In the end, it was Seretse’s absence from his home that caused the disruption feared by successive British Governments. The Bangwato rebelled against their imposed British chief and three policemen were killed. Once Seretse returned, the protectorate began its progress towards becoming one of the few Constitutional democracies in Africa. And today, because of its calls for democracy in apartheid South Africa, Botswana now faces a counter-sanctions threat from Pretoria. Copyright — London Observer Service.