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BOTSWANA-ZIMBABWE:
Tensions continue to simmer
IRIN
News
August 10, 2004
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=42604
JOHANNESBURG - Botswana
has defended the practice of caning people, including illegal immigrants,
convicted of petty offences, despite protests from neighbouring Zimbabwe
over the "primitive" punishment handed out to some of its citizens.
Tension between the two countries has been simmering in recent years as
increasing numbers of Zimbabweans enter Botswana, both legally and illegally,
in a bid to escape the economic crisis at home.
On Monday Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper quoted Junior Security
Minister Nicholas Goche as saying: "The act of flogging law-breakers in
public is primitive and unruly. We have even stopped flogging our children
in schools here in Zimbabwe, and feel Botswana should move with the times."
The practice of caning had to be "aborted", he said.
Zimbabwean officials have previously objected to Botswana court decisions
sentencing Zimbabwean immigrants to corporal punishment, but Botswana
has reiterated that its laws are applied universally within its borders
and are not targeted at Zimbabweans.
Presidential spokesman Jeff Ramsay told IRIN that "flogging under certain
circumstances is allowed and it would apply to anybody, it is not targeted
to any one group of people". However, "certain categories of people, such
as the youth, women, the elderly ... are excluded" from the sentencing
option of corporal punishment.
There were "two parallel legal systems" in Botswana, and "most of the
floggings have been in the context of customary courts run by traditional
authorities [deliberating] on minor cases", he explained.
"In the original case that caused something of a stir, the people who
had been caned happened to be Zimbabwean and admitted their guilt and
opted for caning. Some of the Zimbabweans [familiar with Botswana's customs]
... frequently take the option of customary courts because they are quicker,
and people don't want to go to jail for petty theft," Ramsay said.
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