Botswana Independence
Botswana became independent on 30 September 1966 as one of the poorest countries on earth and diamonds were found the following year. The Bechuanaland Protectorate had been almost entirely neglected. Britain had taken it in 1885 to keep the Germans and the Boers apart and to hold the road north for Rhodes, administered it from Mafikeng in South Africa, and at independence left behind twelve kilometres of paved road, twenty-two citizens with university degrees and a hundred with secondary schooling. The country's leader was Seretse Khama, heir to the chieftaincy of the Bangwato, who had married a white English woman, Ruth Williams, while studying law in London in 1948. South Africa, which had just introduced apartheid, and Southern Rhodesia both objected, and Britain — which needed South African gold and uranium — banished him from his own country for six years and lied to Parliament about why. He renounced the chieftaincy in 1956, was allowed home, founded the Democratic Party, and won the first elections. What happened after 1966 is unusual enough to be studied on its own. The diamond revenues from Orapa and Jwaneng were negotiated into a fifty-fifty partnership with De Beers rather than a royalty, invested in schools, clinics and roads, and managed with a fiscal rule that saved the surplus abroad. Botswana had among the fastest growth rates in the world for three decades and multiparty elections throughout, and was hit harder by AIDS than almost anywhere. The marriage that Britain broke up its own protectorate's succession over was still going in 1980 when Khama died in office, and their son Ian Khama was president from 2008. Britain apologised for the banishment only long after everyone concerned was dead.
- Year: 1966 CE
- Category: Political
