American Friends Service Committee Southern International Affairs Representative

Lesotho: Living in the Lion's Mouth by Carole Collins, SAIAR [Based on visits in Dec. 88 and May 89]

Introduction

In June and July of 1989, the head of 's military government faced the worst political crisis since he came to power almost four years earlier. Major-General Justin Metsing Lekhanya was accused of having shot and killed a student and then instigating a cover-up, in a confused incident that took place six months earlier. Details of alleged shady business deals with Taiwanese companies by Lekhanya also began to emerge.

An October verdict of justifiable homicide absolved Lekhanya of legal blame in the student's death, but many feel this incident will likely hasten his eventual removal from power. Opponents within the ruling Military Council began pressing him to resign as early as June. Although not a prime instigator of the January 1986 coup which brought the army to power, Lekhanya has chaired the council since then. His generally pro-South African positions· iniiially won some support, but have come under increasing criticism ­ especially his September 1988 decision (opposed by Lesotho's King Moshoeshoe II and other senior military figures) to call in the South African army to rescue hostages seized during the Pope's visit to Lesotho.

These signs of political discontent came as the military government's policy of amnesty for former political exiles seemed to be paying off. , 71-year old head of the opposition Basotho Congress Party (BCP) , left Lesotho in 1974 after a failed coup attempt. His return home under amnesty in February, along with 60 supporters, marked the ostensible end to activities of the (LLA) , the BCP's alleged 'military wing'. The LLA had been used by as a proxy terrorist force to exert pressure on Lesotho's previous government - headed by Chief from 1970-1986 - as it increasingly took positions opposed to those of Pretoria.

In March 1989, members of the Military Council also began new talks with representatives of political parties banned after the 1986 coup, including the BCP (but without Mokhehie) and the former ruling party, the (BNP). But Lekhanya strongly opposes a return to

- 1 - civilian rule, saying "party politics is the scourge of this country [ ...which] almost plunged us into civil war."

"We can choose friends: we cannot choose neighbors."

Totally surrounded by the Republic of , Lesotho symbolizes both resistance to, and overwhelming dependence on, the system of . This "black monarchy surrounded by a white-ruled republic" emerged as a tiny state in the 19th century in resistance to Boer expansion. Unlike some larger neighbors, it was able to exclude white settlers from owning land. Yet over half Lesotho's adult workforce (150,000 of them miners) today depend on jobs in the Republic for their livelihood, and 40-45% of its GNP derives from remittances of Lesotho miners working there. All its electricity and 95% of its imports are from South Africa. Its currency, the loti (plural maloti) is pegged directly to the value of the .

Despite its tiny size, the Kingdom of Lesotho is of international interest as a litmus of 'how the winds are blowing' (politically, economically) in South Africa and as a potential base for sanctions-busting efforts by the Pretoria regime. As with all BLS countries - , Lesotho and Swaziland - Lesotho is linked to Pretoria by membership in the South African Customs Union (SACU), from which it gets 60% of its government revenues. Of all three, Lesotho has the least resources available to allow it to create some options for independent economic action. Yet it also belongs to the nine-member Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC), aimed at reducing dependency on South Africa and developing more self-reliant economic development within the region.

Arriving in Lesotho: First Impressions

Unless one drives through South Africa, all visitors must fly to this highland country, which is half the size of West Virginia but more mountainous. Such a trip usually brings one under the eye of South African security at one point or another. At Johannesburg's Jan Smuts airport, even transit passengers must show their passports to South African immigration officials. One can reach Lesotho direct from Swaziland, Botswana, and , but even here one is not free of possible scrutiny: Air Lesotho, lacking its own computerized system, must confirm all bookings via phone to .

Flying in from the north provides a dramatic view of Lesotho's mountainous heartland. with the highest mean altitude in the world (nothing below 1500 meters), Lesotho suffers severely from lack of water and. from advanced soil erosion (one reason why it coordinates work on soil and water conservation for SADCC). In the 19th century, Lesotho

- 2 - was a granary for the region. But over-population created by those fleeing Boer (Dutch) expansion and annexation of land has exhausted what land remains and caused overgrazing (some ranges are overstocked by 300%). This is evident from the air: huge tracts of land bisected by deep gullies and other evidence of uncontrolled water run-off.

Similar evidence marks the drive south from along the narrow, fertile plateau skirting the western side of Lesotho's mountains. This most densely populated part of Lesotho is denuded of trees (although a few small forestry and woodlot projects dot the landscape). The few patches of fertile soil can be cultivated only with difficulty because of deep gulleys and run-offs that make plowing and planting impossible. On a trip with FAO staff, I saw efforts to reclaim some of these gulleys by planting a special kind of grass to retard water run-off and silt them up, and by growing useful plants and wood-fuel trees in the gulleys themselves.

Signs of South Africa's Presence

In Maseru, most government and commercial offices lie along a main road running to the South African border, about a kilometer from the center of town. South Africa's commercial presence is striking: Spar and OK Bazaar supermarkets, new cars imported from South Africa, virtually all food 'made in the Republic. I Even the distinctive bright-colored Basotho blankets worn by almost all adult men are mostly 'made in South Africa.' (Basotho woven hats, however, are a local product.) Lesotho has tried to earn foreign exchange through tourism - an area it also corrdinates work on for SADCC - but 96% of visiting tourists are South African.

In addition to the occasional South African soldier, fertile South African farmland can be seen across the river skirting Maseru, land which Lesotho lost to Boer farmers in the late 19th century, further reducing its arable land. At river's edge is one of Lesotho's three army bases, where members of the Royal Lesotho Defense Force (RLDF) engage in daily drills. White-painted rocks on the large hill overlooking the base spell out RLDF, the non-centered 'R' (for Royal) added after the Jan. 1986 coup which suspended Lesotho's parliament and invested Lesotho's King Moshoeshoe II with legislative as well as executive powers under guidance of the military council.

Lesotho's other and larger army base in Maseru boasts a military hospital built by the South African Defense Forces (SADF) for the Lesotho army. There are unsubstantiated reports that some patients have been South African, Namibian and UNITA soldiers from the Namibian/Angolan front. A soldier from the base, however, said the hospital caters

- 3 - ~ostly to the military officers (and their families) who run Lesotho's government. Another, talking of Maseru's chronic and severe housing shortage, complained that these officers were given two houses while most soldiers had none: one on the base due to their military rank, another off-base given them as a member of government.

Enter a bank, and you may be confused as to where you are: Lesotho maloti and South African rand are used interchangeably, mixed together in the bundies of currency given out for a cashed travellers' check. Lesotho's membership in the Common Currency Area gives its money the same value as the rand, and makes the loti vulnerable to 'imported' South African inflation. The cost of Lesotho's imports climb whenever the rand drops in value on international markets.

Basotho Dynamics

Most of Lesotho's 1.6 million citizens are Basotho (sing. Mosotho), a culturally homogenous people whose Sesotho language is related to the Tswana spoken in Botswana. 88% of Lesotho's people live in or come from rural areas, where chiefs have preserved many of their traditional functions, e.g. allocating grazing and cultivation rights, acting as local magistrates. They also underpin local government administration, handling a bewildering array of tasks: assisting village development pro.jects; registering births, deaths and marriages; checking licenses; certifying property transfers and ownership. Many chiefs come from the royal lineage, and Moshoeshoe II, originally considered Lesotho's hereditary 'paramount chief,' only became King in 1966, the year Lesotho gained its independence.

On a visit to Mohale's Hoek southwest of Maseru, residents told us that local chiefs' links to different factions of the royal lineage (Chief Jonathan, ousted by ~he army in 1986, and Moshoeshoe II come from feuding factions of the royal family) often determine their access to development funds and willingness to cooperate in development projects benefiting those under another chief. On a national level, parliamentary splits evident during Jonathan's rule often reflected these intra-clan feuds as much as substantive issues.

A key indigenous institution is the pitso or village meeting, a public forum where open debates used to last for days. The military government, touting them as a system of local democracy, has boosted the number of pitsos at district and ward as well as village levels. But the ban on party politics and expression of political ideas after the 1986 coup has emptied pitso debates of much real content. Now, people told me, pitsos are little more than meetings where government leaders announce what policies they have

- 4 - adopted, and elections like the recent one for Maseru's first city council have become little more than personality contests.

Religious affiliation is politically important in Lesotho, which is almost evenly split between Roman Catholics and members of the Lesotho Evangelical Church (LEC) and other protestants. Religious competition reinforced clan divisions and later became linked to different political parties. Jonathan initially won support from the Catholic hierarchy, while the LEC sided with Jonathan's political opponents and condemned human rights abuses during his rule. Jonathan later lost Catholic support when he began opening ties to socialist countries. Lesotho's National University was originally set up by the . Following the 1986 coup, the junta appointed protestants to the education ministry to redress what they felt had been Jonathan's favoring of Catholic educators.

Although the Sotho clans first united into one entity in 1833, they had to struggle to maintain independence from white rule and further dispossession by Afrikaaner settlers. In 1868, Lesotho's paramount chief formally put his country under British rule to avoid annexation and rule by the . The British ruled 'Basutholand' until 1966, alternating attempts to force western-style institutional changes on the Basotho with periods where the Basotho were allowed to operate their own political institutions.

Britain had expected that Lesotho would eventually be federated with South Africa. The National Party victory in 1948, which institutionalized apartheid, and growing nationalist sentiment within Lesotho in the 1950s to early 1960s, combined to force them to move towards granting independence in 1966.

Party Politics and Apartheid

Chief Leabua Jonathan's Basotho National Party (BNP) , formed in 1958, did poorly in the 1960 elections for the national assembly. In 1965, however, it narrowly won the elections, reportedly with South African support (I was told Jonathan was the only politician allowed to campaign among Basotho migrant workers there). The 'rival Basotho Congress Party (BCP) , led by Ntsu Mokhehle until his flight from Lesotho in 1974, had won the 1960 elections and helped secure the 1964 pre-independence constitution, which reduced the King's power. Mokhehle allied the BCP closely to the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) of South Africa, accusing the rival Africa National Congress (ANC) of plots to oust him. (Perhaps as a result, Jonathan favored the ANC; after the coup, the junta ordered ANC members deported.)

Jonathan's government immediately came into conflict with

- 5 - the King, who was put under house arrest and forced to sign. an agreement not to interfere in national politics. During his early years in power, Jonathan placed seconded South Africans in key positions (Rembrandt's Anton Rupert became his industrial adviser) and politically purged the police force before arming them more heavily. After losing the 1970 general election to the BCP, he declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, jailed opposition leaders, banned political parties, and effectively forced the King into temporary exile. In late 1970, Jonathan declared a 5-year 'holiday from politics' for the country.

The BCP's military wing, the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) soon began small guerrilla attacks on police and other government posts. Growing protests even from members of his own party forced· Jonathan to set up a 93-member interim national assembly in 1975 drawn from various political parties, including an internal faction of the BCP that had broken with Mokhehle. Jonathan also began to distance himself from Pretoria, differing publicly with them on political and economic issues and moving to open diplomatic relations with socialist countries. Pretoria soon began to support the LLA financially and otherwise, particularly after the 1976 Soweto uprising when large numbers of anti-apartheid activists, especially ANC members, fled to Lesotho for sanctuary. LLA attacks, bombings and assassinations continued, as did clashes between BCP supporters and the police.

Jonathan's strategy then switched to consolidating BNP power; non-BNP elements were forced out of the cabinet and government. Despite efforts to win support among the military, he faced a mutiny over low pay and protests over activities of the well-armed and North Korean-trained BNP Youth League. (People disliked and feared Youth League members for their arrogant behavior and intimidation. The army, and South Africa, were also uneasy over YL rhetorical support for eastern bloc countries.) When the 5 opposition parties boycotted the 1985 election, Jonathan declared BNP candidates elected unopposed. The new cabinet included several young BNP radicals; their attempt to oust Lesotho Paramilitary Force (LPF) leader Lekhanya helped put the coup in motion.

Factors provoking Pretoria to close its borders with Lesotho were Jonathan's refusal to expel ANC members (even after the December raid), his opening of diplomatic ties with Cuba, the USSR and other Eastern bloc countries (which lost him even Catholic Church support), and his refusal to sign a security treaty with South Africa (Pretoria had pressured Mozambique and Swaziland to sign such agreements in 1984). By closing its land frontiers with Lesotho, Pretoria effectively cut off the flow of essential supplies, including food, petrol, medicine and electricity, into the

- 6 - kingdom.

The 1986 border blockade by Pretoria is a textbook example of ruthless (and successful) application of comprehensive economic sanctions in order to destabilize a neighboring black-ruled country. Using Lesotho's economic dependency, Pretoria created economic pressures to intensify long-standing internal conflicts and bring to power a military government more of acquiescent to its pressures and policies. The fact that Lekhanya and the heads of Lesotho's security and police had just returned from 'security consultations' in South Africa immediately prior to the coup suggest that Pretoria may have played a more direct role than it admits.

Post-coup Directions

Following the coup, full executive and legislative powers were vested in the King as head of state, advised and guided by the 6-man Military Council. A 20-member Council of Ministers, also chaired by Lekhanya, has both civilian and military representation. Six weeks after the coup, the junta banned all political activity, discussion and parties indefinitely. It began to adopt policies more favored by Pretoria, with far-reaching impact on Lesotho:

-- Within 5 days almost 50 ANC members were deported to , after being checked and photographed at the airport by South African security agents. Others were soon pressured to follow. Cooperatio'n between South African and Lesotho security forces increased. The flow of refugees to and through Lesotho has since dropped to a trickle (now only 1-2 each month) .

-- The junta approved the $2 b. Highlands Water Project, which will displace 20,000 rural Basotho and provide 3000 unskilled jobs during construction (most skilled jobs going to foreign firms), in order to generate electricity for Lesotho and water for South Africa's Vaal industrial triangle and white farms. (Jonathan had pressed for better terms and had resisted including security clauses later accepted by the junta. )

-- The junta allowed Pretoria to boost its diplomatic presence and set up a Trade Mission within a year. South African-based & owned companies have flocked in growing numbers to Maseru, seeking a 'made in Lesotho' label on their products to avoid losing valuable overseas markets as a result of the U.S. Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and other economic sanctions imposed by the international community.

Many people, including critics of the junta, say they

- 7 - initially rejoiced at Jonathan's overthrow. They welcomed the junta's disbanding of the Youth League and hoped police repression would ease. Despite the ugly settling of some old scores (e.g. the Nov. 1986 murder of 3 former BNP Youth League leaders and their wives), many say the human rights situation did improve after Jonathan's ouster. Since 1988, however, the situation has worsened as popular dissatisfaction grows over the junta's failure to grapple effectively with Lesotho's economic problems, its pro-South Africa tilt as workers' struggles inside South Africa (some involving Lesotho migrant laborers) intensify, and its refusal to move toward more democratic and civilian rule.

The Papal Visit and the Hijacking Episode

In September 1988, Pope John Paul II visited Lesotho as part of a 5-nation tour of southern Africa. His visit was marred by two unexpected incidents:

-- The papal jet was forced to land in South Africa, which had been deliberately excluded from the itinerary because of its apartheid policies, allegedly because of bad weather at Maseru. South Africa's foreign minister pik Botha hosted a lunch for the Pope before arranging for him to be driven to Maseru in a South African Police motorcade. As other planes landed about the time the Papal plane was due and as South African personnel maintain much of the airport equipment, there is a widespread belief that the forced landing was contrived by Pretoria.

-- In a more bizarre incident, four gunmen flagged down a bus carrying nuns and schoolchildren on their way to the Papal mass and ordered it to drive to the British High Commission in Maseru after wiring it with explosives. The next day, Lekhanya asked for SADF help to deal with the hijacking; a special SADF task force was sent to Maseru and, in the ensuing shootout, killed 3 hijackers and a passenger, as well as injuring others.

No one may ever know the true motives of the hijackers. A source who'd read the official autopsy report told me the fourth gunman, captured and held under guard after being wounded, had died in the hospital after his throat was slit. The hijacking was only later attributed to an LLA splinter. Many question this, however, because the LLA's parent, the BCP, had begun talks with the junta. Other sources say military officers had earlier warned relatives tq avoid certain buses travelling at certain times, indicating prior knowledge. The Papal mass was ill-attended - only 10,000 people filled a small corner of the national stadium ­ though over a million people had been expected.

- 8 - Human Rights and Refugees: Surrounded by three of South Africa's provinces, Lesotho was a convenient place to which anti-apartheid refugees could flee in the 70s and early 80s. By 1985, it housed 11,500 UNHCR-registered refugees. But its location also made refugees vulnerable to commando attacks. In the early to mid 1980s, Pretoria initiated commando raids against exiles in several black-ruled states in the region, including Lesotho. In December 1982, between 50 and 100 South "African commandos raided Maseru, killing 30 ANC members and 12 Lesotho citizens. A number of ANC refugees have subsequently been killed or abducted there. In December 1985, on the eve of the coup, the SADF raided several houses in Maseru, killing nine people (including 3 Lesotho nationals) .

Last December, during my visit, a grenade was thrown onto the roof of the empty UNHCR refugee transit house in Maseru, blowing it in. No one was hurt, said neighbors, but the police only began investigations two days afterwards. Although the junta pressured most refugees to leave after the coup, their number has also declined as struggle intensifies across the border and activists try to stay underground rather than going to exile.

Basotho report the increasingly open presence of South African security agents in Lesotho since the coup, often working with Lesotho security. Lesotho security men often visit local organizations to watch what they are doing. Ben Phofali, head of Young Christian Students, a Catholic student group, told me how he was interrogated in January 1988, first by Lesotho security (over an European student meeting to which YCS rather than the government-sponsored youth group was invited) and then twice by South African security police.

The latter, 'coloureds' who spoke Afrikaans, abducted and threatened to kill him, he said, forced him to swallow an acid pill, then put a plastic bag over his head. The pill made him vomit, which he then was forced to breathe in. This is one of the few cases which has been taken to court. The judge ordered Lesotho police and security to investigate the presence of these South Africans and report back to him, but 15 months later, says Ben, nothing has been done. South African anti-apartheid activists are still targets for cross-border action by South African hit squads: in March 1988, ANC member Mazizi Maqekeza was shot dead in his Maseru hospital bed by a lone gunman, while recovering from wounds suffered two months before at a Lesotho road block.

Basotho also suspect Pretoria's involvement in funding a local newspaper and recruiting journalists to expose government corruption. Although the Mirror, which began in September 1988, criticized officials of a government seen to be pro-South African, the only exposes were of past

- 9 - corruption by hold-overs from the Jonathan regime kept on by the junta. One belief is that Pretoria is funding these exposes to reduce the high cost of corruption among officials in Lesotho and bantustans such as Ciskei and Bophuthatswana, increasingly expensive for a cash-strapped Pretoria to bailout.

Lesotho's Royal Family

King Moshoeshoe II, who now exerts all executive and legislative powers under guidance of the 6-man military council, is a complex person, full of ambiguities and contradictions. Some Basotho say he is a passive tool of the military junta; others believe he opposes their pro-Pretoria inclinations. An advocate of socialism, he openly admires China and other East Bloc nations but opposes a return to participatory democracy - or at least to the system of party politics Lesotho had before.

Lesotho's royal family has an engaging informality'and accessibility. During my last stay, I went with a local friend to the royal village, not far off the main road south of Maseru. Under the surrounding rocky mountainside, a chateau-like house rose above more traditional dwellings, women sweeping the ground in front clear of leaves. On knocking at the open door, we were greeted by the Queen, wrapped in a traditional maize-pattern wool blanket. We had interrupted her ironing, she said, but warmly invited us ln for tea.

Our talk was interrupted by a constant stream of friends, family members and others asking the Queen for advice on various matters. At one point the Crown Prince carne in, dressed in canvas shoes and blue jeans held up with suspenders, to discuss farm matters. The Queen, said my friend during one of these interruptions, works in her own fields, hoeing and planting, a model of hard work to other Basotho women. Later, however, some complained that the Queen was over-supplying eggs to the egg-buying parastatal, crowding out other suppliers.

We talked about Lesotho's problems of poverty, and the long drought it had suffered, which had left many rural communities impoverished. The Queen talked of her pain at seeing malnourished children, many of whom did not have the clothes or shoes to attend school. Some gather outside a school near tea time, hoping that perhaps there would be a little extra food or drink left over from the students for them. She assists various self-help efforts in rural areas, and we discussed the problems that women faced in joining co-operatives.

- 10 - Tough Economic Realities

One of the world's least developed countries, Lesotho faces harsh economic realities. Development and use of its few resources - land, labor and water - are tied inextricably to the neighboring South African economy. (Its one diamond mine, which in 1980 accounted for 55% of Lesotho's exports, later closed due to falling world diamond prices.) Rural Basotho are somewhat insulated from this economy, ekeing out a subsistence living when the weather permits. But most Basotho live in the lowland plateau areas, where South Africa looms large in providing jobs, goods, food. In 1988, Lesotho imported M932 m. worth of goods and services, 95% from South Africa, and exported M77 m., 85% to South Africa. Lesotho has failed to attract significant foreign investment. South African investors prefer to be based in the bantustans, which bar labor organizing and provide better investment incentives.

Land: Only 13% of Lesotho's land is arable, and about 25% of the population are already landless. Agriculture provides income to 70% of the domestic labor force, but crop yields have fallen about 3% per year in the last decade due to soil erosion and poor farming techniques. Agriculture's contribution to GDP fell from 50% in 1973/74 to only 20% in 1987. Lesotho normally imports about 25% of its food; since drought struck in 1982/3, this rose to over 50%.

Exporting Labor - Lesotho's Migrant Workers: Given its few resources and little arable land, Lesotho is unable to provide jobs for its employable population. Lesotho's modern sector employs only 40-50,000 Basotho, half of these in government. Since 1983, Lesotho has lost many of its professional and government workers to the bantustans, where salaries and benefits are higher. Of Lesotho's total work force (over 620,000), one third now work in South Africa, mostly as miners, remitting f172 m. back to Lesotho in 1988 alone. Such dependency works in both directions: 80% of Lesotho migrant miners work in skilled jobs in South Africa's gold mines and are not readibly replaceable. South Africa has deported migrants when they participate in strikes, as it did with Lesotho miners in 1987 following a National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) strike. But these miners brought back to Lesotho a political consciousness that has subtly affected Lesotho's internal politics. with so few local alternatives, sixty percent of males between 18 and 40 years of age will work at one time or another in South Africa. This has dramatically affected Lesotho's social fabric. Many young Basotho drop out of school after the sixth grade, because a school diploma opens few job opportunities at horne and most work open to them in South African mines does not require literacy.

- 11 - Lesotho's dependency on migrant labor is very evident Friday afternoon when I met a labor organizer at the bus terminal near Maseru's pitso grounds (traditional place for political meetings). Crowds of parcel-carrying Basotho workers back from South Africa shout and jostle one another to get a seat on buses to their rural home areas. On Sunday, they will make the long trip back to their jobs in the Republic. Many carry consumer products bought with their South African earnings: radios, TVs, clothing and household utensils.

As in Botswana, South Africa's consumer culture has been fully integrated into local life. Sophisticated marketing and packaging induces most Basotho to prefer South African products to local ones. Many rural houses sport South African-made paint and tin roofs. Almost everything comes from the Republic, used in a government project to boost local milk production by helping semi-urban households to raise one or two dairy cows is "made in South Africa." Most workers' earnings are not spent in Lesotho to boost local demand and industry, but in South Africa itself.

Selling Water: Eight months after the 1986 coup, the junta and South African" authorities signed the Lesotho Highlands Water Project agreement. An enormous $2 billion project stretching over 20 years, it will divert half the flow of the Senqu river system northwards into the thirsty industrial areas around Johannesburg and Pretoria. The World Bank is a major funder, along with the u.S. and the EEC. Engineering and consulting firms from the UK, , Italy, and Sweden as well as South Africa will carry out most of the work. South Africa is responsible for financing all of the water transfer component, Lesotho for the hydropower segment.

The project will make Lesotho self-sufficient in hydro-electric power (it now imports 99.9% of its needs), create about 3000 temporary (and mostly unskilled) jobs, improve some rural infrastructure, and generate royalty payments from water sold South Africa about equal in value to Lesotho's present SACU revenue. But it will also flood about 182 square Km of scarce arable and grazing land in Lesotho's highland valleys, forcing about 20,000 rural Basotho to relocate, and tie Lesotho even closer to the South African economy. Before being ousted, Jonathan had negotiated for better terms and resisted Pretoria's pressure to include security clauses in the proposed agreement. To reduce the political problems of financing a project that primarily benefits South Africa, a special trust fund is to be set up in the UK to receive payments, freeing lenders of any direct commercial relationship with South Africa. The US government has indicated that this structure will allow the project to be considered for both Eximbank credits and aid.

- 12 - Basotho are ambivalent about its impact. "We will become beggars when the new dam is built," said one villager living north of Thaba Tseka, when he spoke to staff of the Transformation Resource Center. "Many of us in this village are old and not used to working for anybody. We depend on our fields, but they will be flooded. We are finished. There is no future for us." Affected villagers claim they have not been consulted and worry that proposed compensation will only cover a fraction of what they will lose.

Adjusting to the IMF

A virtual enclave of the South African economy, Lesotho's economic problems are structural in nature, but also a result of economic mismanagement and fiscal indiscipline. In 1988, the government signed a US$12.8 million, 3-year IMF structural adjustment agreement to try and stabilize the economy. A year later, however, it had met almost none of the agreement's targetted objectives. One reason was the military government's inability to cut its spending and control ministries' expenditures. The budget deficit rose to 17% of GDP (rather than the 11% the government agreed to aim for), after civil servants received a 40% wage increase (the agreement allowed for only 23%). Government domestic debt rose by 50%, and the government took out commercial loans of M40 m. for such non-essential purchases as embassy residences and aircraft. .

Austerity has begun to bite at the grassroots level, however, and the Young Christian Students (YCS) plan to develop a campaign to protest its impact on poor and working people. Hospital fees were increased by 300% after July 1988, and public service cutbacks now endangering the World Bank-funded National Health Training Center, set up to train medical personnel. Few trainees will land jobs with the government health service, and many may end up seeking work in South Africa's bantustans. Housing subsidies have been cut and fee increases for water and electricity have been discussed. Primary school fees are likely to increase this year, and hundreds of older teachers have lost their jobs. Almost 1000 daily paid government workers were dismissed in November 1988, wages frozen until April of 1990, and those over 55 years of age with 10 years service are being retired.

Lesotho's economic vulnerability fits into Pretoria's newest strategy to expand its economic power in the SADCC region. Last December, sources told me, the government, unable to meet its payroll, was forced to borrow from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), a South African bank set up to fund the bantustans and win them indirect legitimacy through taking on a wider regional role. DBSA is also involved in the Highlands Water scheme and in loans to

- 13 - Botswana and Mozambique. It has reportedly bought up debt in , so any future independent government will owe it money.

Basotho Women

In Lesotho, women outnumber men by 630,000 to 440,000, and 60% of households are headed by women. They produce 85% of home-produced food but enjoy few property rights. Left in the rural areas when their husbands leave to work in South Africa, they struggle to feed their children and themselves~ Some migrant workers, away from their families for most of the year, take 'wives' in South Africa and reduce the money they send back home. This diminishing income, which a woman often can't use without her husband's signature, increasingly fails to cover living expenses (including school and medical fees).

More and more women are now migrating to the cities seeking work, an internal migration sparked by the external migration of men. (This has also contributed to a 14% decline in maize output and 29% cut in sorghum production in the past decade.) A day-long Lesotho Church Council meeting I attended urged more research on women's migration, the social and family stresses it generates, and what programs could reduce this internal migration and the problems it brings.

Many Basotho women also work in South Africa, though in fewer numbers than men, mostly as domestic servants for white families. A friend I visited had worked there for almost 15 years. She used the money earned to buy South African-made furniture (sofas, chairs, beds, a stove) for her house near Maseru.

Seeking Solutions to Unemployment - The Growing Informal Sector

With limited resources, there aren't any easy solutions to the unemployment problem. In a meeting with Lesotho's Education Minister, we discussed the educational needs of Basotho who increasingly enter the informal sector as their main hope for employment. The education system provides them with little training relevant to the conditions they find there, he admitted. Most education is unconsciously geared to training people for employment in government, which less than one in thirty Basotho will ever experience.

The Basotho Mineworkers Labour Cooperative (BMLC) was formed by some of the over 7000 Lesotho miners who lost their jobs in South Africa for supporting a strike called by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in ~987. Initially assisted by the NUM, it is currently developing several income-generating co-operative projects - in agriculture and

- 14 - brick-making, among others - to provide income for these miners and their families. A trade union organizer I met with said the growth of the informal sector posed a particular problem for their efforts, starting back in the 1950s, to organize Lesotho workers for better wages and working conditions. Those in the informal sector provide goods and services for many different employers, creating an almost insurmountable obstacle to organizing for improved pay and conditions of work.

Foreign Aid's Double-Edged Sword

Although development aid is intended to strengthen Lesotho's economic self-reliance, it has actually encouraged further dependency on South Africa. One source estimates that 80-90% of aid money leaves Lesotho, and roughly half ends up helping South Africa. Most medium to small purchases for aid projects, as well as maintenance and repair of large equipment, are done in South Africa, particularly in border towns. Foreign development assistance declined 30% between 1980 and 1986 in real terms. The US, FRG and UK provide 60% of bilateral aid, and multilateral donors almost all the remainder.

US AID provides about US$ 10 million a year in technical assistance, mostly in the areas of education and health. About half may be spent in South Africa; most of the remainder stays in the U.S. (spent on procurement of goods or salaries of US personnel working in Lesotho) .

Lesotho trade unionists told me they are wary of funding provided by the African-American Labor Center, an AFL-CIO body that is over 95% funded by the US government. They asked me why it was supporting discredited labor organizers who split from the NUM after charges of mis-appropriation and set up the Miners Welfare and Dependents' Association to siphon off funds to assist Lesotho's unemployed miners. They asked why AALC was working inside South Africa from Lesotho, and noted that it was directing support to less political unions, particularly those outside COSATU.

Lesotho as a Sanctions-Busting Haven?

Since 1986, Lesotho has experienced a small manufacturing boom from the over 20 foreign companies - from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Africa - which have relocated there. Most are producing textiles, footwear and basic consumption goods for export abroad; since their arrival in 1986, Lesotho's exports almost tripled in value up to 1988.

The Lesotho National Development Corporation, a parastatal, has worked to attract foreign investment through investment concessions that include: a 10-year tax holiday (extendable to 15 years); a factory shell program that offers serviced

- 15 - industrial sites for immediate lease; a government-sponsored skills training grant covering up to 75% of wages during training; access to concessional loans at 11-13%; ready access to foreign exchange and repatriation of profits.

Many companies have moved to Lesotho to avoid anti-apartheid sanctions, others to circumvent US and European import quota systems that only allow products of low-income countries in duty-free. Lesotho enjoys preferential access to EEC markets under the Lome Convention Agreement and to the US under the GSP program. Although a number of jobs have been created, there is concern that the companies tend to be in industries, like textiles, that are mobile (i.e. can relocate quickly and easily) and have a high degree of import content in their operations, and there is no assurance that they will permanently boost Lesotho's productivity.

What Future for Lesotho

Lesotho has 1.8 m. Basotho, but over 3 million live in South Africa as a result of land losses to Afrikaaners in the last century. Lesotho has resisted direct incorporation into South Africa. But many ask if the junta, by increasing cooperation with and economic dependency on Pretoria, has not effectively made Lesotho a bantustan. Several Basotho sardonically refer to Lesotho as "QuaQua Extension," a reference to the tiny 'homeland' ,for Basotho set up inside South Africa on Lesotho's northern border.

Many Lesotho nationals do not want closer ties with Pretoria. Neither do many want to contemplate what a truly liberated South Africa would mean. The raison d'etre of the country - resisting incorporation by white rulers - would disappear, say some. Some SA activists have expressed anger at Lesotho's treatment of the liberation movements. 'We will get even,' I overheard one young South A~rican church worker say to a Lesotho church worker.

Many Basotho do not like any of the political options open to them. Few that I talked to supported Lekhanya, seeing him as too close to South Africa. Equally few supported his opponents within the military, Cols. Sekhobe and Thaabe Letsie, who are both members of the royal family and thought to be close to the King. Many fear that should the Letsies come to power, Lesotho would become more monarchical. Chiefs would be given more power and party politics would be further suppressed. And few want to return to the seeming stalemate between political parties that characterized the early independence years.

When I asked Basotho friends what they thought the future would bring, the most common answer was "We do not think of the future."

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