Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

342 Sancfioning Apartheid
sustained in a clash with RLDF members, and the angry response
in the government paper Lesoth Today (7 April 1988) to the
allegations about his death in the Johannesbwg Weekly Mail (25
March 1988), is perhaps the most disturbing incident. The Lesotho
Today editorial makes clear that although the government of
Lesotho's policy is "to give refuge to genuine political refugees
as a signatory of the UN convention on refugees," in its view all
"refugees" must report themselves to the "refemnt authorities"
on arrival, and may not carry firearms without an official
government license (which clearly will not be issued to South
African refugees). To quote the editorial, Zesotho has neither
the wish nor the power to keep refugees whose intention is to
use Lesotho as a launching pad for attacks on other countries."
The inclusion of "nor the pow& in this sentence is of some
interest, suggesting that armed ANC rnernben in Lesotho are
vulnerable to South African actions.
Although the Lesotho govenunent is very far from a
homogeneous entity, with the Council of Ministers encompassing
both relatively politically neutral technocrats and persons of clear
political identification ranging all the way across the Lesotho
political spectrum from highly "right wing" former ministers of
Jonathan (e-g., E. R Sekhonyana, Minister of Finance) to 'left
wing" graduates of Moscow State University (e.g., Michael W,
ironically Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs), it is clear
that on important matters of policy it is the Military Council,
consisting of five career military officers, that has the final say on
policy. However, it is also widely believed in Lesotho that the
members of the Military Council are themselves not wholly in
agreement on the appropriate political strategies to adopt toward
South A&ica and domestic constitutional arrangements. Some
sources allege that the King, in alliance with his cousins, the
Lieutenant-Colonels Letsie, wishes to retain the current system
that gives him substantiat power, whereas Lekhanya and others
would like a return to some form of democracy, and that South
Africa sides with Lekhanya because of a desire for democratic
legitimacy to its agreements concerning the Highlands Water
Sch~ne.~ However, when it comes to economic relations with the
Republic, and the desirability of Highlands Water, there does not
appear to be much disagreement, and this suggestion has a