‘We’ve lost confidence in soldiers’

MASERU – Matelile Ha-Tebelo villagers told Lieutenant General Mojalefa Letsoela that they have lost confidence in the soldiers at a base near their village.

Lt Gen Letsoela visited the village on Saturday, two weeks after a violent clash between the Ha-Tebelo and Ha-Kanono villagers left three people dead and several injured.

Cars and houses were either torched or damaged in the bloody clash triggered by a shooting incident that broke at an initiation ceremony.

“We do not have confidence in the police and the army here in Ha-Tebelo,” said ’Maithabeleng Billy, whose brother-in-law was murdered.

Billy, the daughter-in-law of the initiation school owner where the fight started, told Lt Gen Letsoela that the violence was started by famo gangsters.

The fight started after a former police officer gave a gun to an initiate as a gift for reciting a praise poem during the ceremony.

Billy however told the commander that the Ha-Kanono men had always planned to attack them and used the incident as an excuse.

“We do not have trust in the army and police here in Matelile,” she said, adding that her brother-in-law was killed in his sleep.

Her father-in-law, the initiation school owner Mothofeela Billy, said he asked for the police and army to intervene before the ceremony but did not get help.

“The three police officers only came on Friday, but on Saturday morning those police officers left,” Mothofeela said.

Mothofela, whose son was killed, said he suspected that the men from Ha-Kanono were planning something sinister when they demanded that he releases their boys from his school.

Tseko Mareka, another resident, said the peace in the village was shattered by a “generation of Makhomosha (famo gangsters working in the illegal mines of South Africa) who have money”.

“The killings were not caused by a man who gave out a gift to an initiate, these people know why they are killing each other,” Mareka said.

Mareka said last year during the same time two people were killed in the village.

“There has always been a plan to burn houses and kill people here.”

He said he reported four times to the army base in their area “but they never came until the car was burned to ashes”.

“We are still shocked.”

Sekotoana Tšole, another villager, said “the police already knew the people who attacked” them.

“The army must remove those soldiers from their base and put them here, close to us,” Tšole said.

The Matelile constituency MP, Maimane Maphathe, said he once tried to reconcile the men in Ha-Kanono and Ha-Tebelo.

“We found deep issues from that conversation,” Maphathe said.

“This matter should be solved between men as it emanates from them.”

Maphathe pleaded with the security agencies to take the men and boys and talk to them.

Lt Gen Letsoela condemned the violence in Matelile.

He said these incidents “shook the peace of the country and the community”. “We hear what happened here, I have heard it with my ears,” the army boss said.

He said the initiated men “have killed their own power to their tradition to the extent that they invite the police and the army” to the initiation huts.

“There must be peace whether the gangs are present or not,” he said.

He ordered soldiers to visit the outskirts and even where the army has posts instead of concentrating on towns.

Lerato Fanana, a villager whose son was shot and killed, said the man who fired the fatal shot had a grudge against his family.

“The shooter had always wanted to kill someone in my family,” Fanana said.

He said in December 2021 his daughter was attacked by the wife of the same man who killed his son two weeks ago.

He said there was bad blood between the attacker and his son.

Nkheli Liphoto