Volume 50 Issue 1 - January 2012 : Heritage

It is generally believed that the 85 year protectorate period was characterized by its peaceful nature, a pliant people, an obliging, easy going British administration and by an almost total absence of any distinguishing event.

All generalizations contain some element of truth but the violent civil eruption in Serowe in 1952 was enough to show how, given sufficient cause, all four generalizations could be shattered almost overnight.

The Serowe riot occurred in 1952, midway during the long drawn out Seretse- Ruth Khama marriage saga which began with their marriage in 1948 and ended in 1956 when Seretse was finally allowed to return here. Prior to the upheaval in Serowe, athree man Bangwato delegation had been sent to London to try and persuade the British government to reverse or modify its policy stance and allow Seretse Khama to return.

The delegation was rebuffed by the Marquis of Salisbury, the recently appointed Conservative Secretary of State. On May 21, 1952 the delegates, having returned to this country, attended a kgotla meeting in Serowe where some 1,000 people heard Salisbury`s response to them read out and then translated.

A further kgotla meeting was arranged for May 26 in order that more people could learn the details of this reply and hear from the delegates. It was indicative of the intense tension then prevailing that the 2000 to 3000 people present were split into two groups; Tshekedi Khama`s facing the dais and the British officials and the other, Seretse Khama`s, sitting with their backs to them.

When it was indicated that the meeting should begin with a prayer, a representative from both groups simultaneously did so. The District Commissioner, a South African curiously named Gordon Batho, then tried to read Salisbury`s reply but was being howled down when a group of women burst into the men-only-kgotla significantly adding to the aready popular fury. Batho promptly jumped in to his car and fled the scene. Convinced by this development that the administration was losing control, the High Commissioner in Pretoria, Sir John Le Rougetel (1951-55) decided that Batho should close the kgotla.

On Saturday May 31, he did so, painting a white line across the entrance and stationing four policemen there. In the afternoon give or take a 100 people brushed aside the  olicemen and assembled in the kgotla. Batho gave them five minutes to disperse. Forty refused and were taken to jail, but released in the morning. On a Sunday, permission was service to be held in the kgotla. He agreed but when this inevitably developed a different kind of momentum, he ordered that it conclude by 2.30 and many peopleleft. But half an hour later, an estimated 600 incensed people assembled outside the kgotla. District Officer, Dennis Atkins, and some policemen, tried to calm things down but were attacked with stones. All were

wounded. Soon afterwards, the police reinforcements earliersummoned from Basutoland, occupied the kgotla with its entrance being blocked by a double line of police which was by now confronted by a much increased crowd.

The ill fated Batho then arrived, ordered a police truck to drive to the kgotla and when the crowd failed to disperse, tear gassed it. The result was total chaos. The crowd attacked the

police who were themselves affected by the tear gas. Two of the Basuto police were killed in the kgotla, another was later found and killed outside Serowe. Twenty other police were injured and admitted to hospital. No one could know how many Bangwato were injured because they avoided the hospital knowing that if they went there, they would probably be arrested.

During that evening every government vehicle found in Serowe was promptly stoned. The following day reinforcements from the British South Africa

police - ten European officers and 70 Africans - arrived in Serowe having been brought in by plane from Rhodesia, landing presumably at Palapye. They together with the resident police, set up road blocks and launched. Panning out through the district they arrested many people but encountered fierce resistance in Palapye where an obdurate crowd was eventually dispersed by batons and tear gas.

Of the 167 people who were arrested, including 40 women, 12 were charged with murder. At the conclusion of their trials in November, seven, including the Ngwato leaders Keaboka

and Peto, were sentenced to three years hard labour. The remainder were either discharged or acquitted. Two young mothers, one with a baby only a few weeks old, were, incredibly, given 12 months hard labour. In September 1955 the last of those who had been imprisoned were released.

 

It may be that past University of Botswana ( UB )students have submitted dissertations on the Serowe riot but today, nearly 60 years later, there will be participants still alive whose recollections should be recorded. And above all, the names should be known of the two unfortunate young women who were sentenced to hard labour. Sadly it has to be recognised

that whilst the riot in Serowe and elsewhere in the district disturbed opinion in Britain, it had little effect on government policy. On the other hand, it is possible that changes in posting were made as a result of the riot.

In early1955 High Commissioner Le Rougetel was replaced by Percivale Liesching but it was only with the arrival on the scene of a new British Prime Minister, Sir Alec

Douglas Home in 1956 that past policies in relation to Seretse and South Africa were reversed. Dennis Atkins, who had been injured in the

kgotla, had earlier, with the other two district officers in Serowe, side stepped his immediate boss in Serowe, Gordon Batho, as well as the British administrators in Mafikeng and Pretoria by writing direct to London. Their intention was to convince the government that its policy was disastrously wrong. Surprisingly, none\ of those three remarkable individuals were fired or even disciplined. Dennis Atkins, later went on to serve in Gaborone and Kanye, leaving the country in 1963 whilst the two others who had signed that very brave document, Jimmy Allison and Peter Cardross Grant stayed on until either immediately before or relatively soon after Boipuso in 1966.

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