Tautona Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope, the erstwhile President of Bophuthatswana homeland, is no more, with him goes the last surviving leaders of the so called TBVC states. These were territories that were nominally independent from South Africa.
As the people of Moretele, we would remember him as a dictator that touched our lives in many ways when Moretele was under the Bophuthatswana administration. Most notably, we will remember him for destroying the local black community business sector and replacing it with retail chain stores, for the brutality and iron-fist in dealing with ANC supporters and for killing our donkeys.
Kaizer Matanzima, Lucas Mangope Lennox Sebe and Patrick Mphephu abetted the divide and rule policy of the apartheid regime by opting for independence of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei respectively.
The measure of excellence of these Bantustan leaders was the severity of brutality they meted on apartheid opponents.
Mangope, the iron fisted chief of Bahurutshe boo Manyane in Motsweding village near Zeerust sought to mask his brutality with acts of piety, he dutifully used to attend church of Assemblies of God with amazing religiosity.
He was a tinpot dictator who was perceived to possess excellent governance knowledge. He modestly developed his Bantustan with a pittance of disbursements from Pretoria. While it can be said that Kgosi Mangope was bereft of sound ideological essence, he managed to implement an administration in line with the objectives of the policies of the apartheid government of creating separate development.
A former teacher who romanticized education for its fruits, Mangope was given the necessary support to improve the quality of education in Bophuthatswana more especially in the field of science and mathematics. He deployed periodic roving science and mathematics experts to selected schools of excellence whose immense pedagogic skills were godsend to rural Bophuthatswana. He was allowed to establish a university and to recruit educators from across the globe.
His musings and ideological perspectives were simplistic and surreal, they often were pointedly disappointing for a man of his background, erudition and eloquence.
Mangope was a benevolent dictator and a rural intellectual with oratorical talent who charmed his way into dusty villages with anecdotal storytelling, parables and crisp charisma.
His overt simplemindedness and gleeful naivety will enduringly remain etched in the minds of a multitude and yet others will reminisce about the jocular manner in which some of his speeches bred laughter and gaiety.
His fiery speeches had a magnetic effect to the point that he would have his audience eating from the palm of his hand. He once rebuked residents of Mabopane for following a man who had no wife and children, in reference to father Smangaliso Mkatshwa , a celibate catholic priest. At the height of his machismo, he amusingly threatened to ‘prickle ‘boycotting students with a prickly pear.
Mangope, a blushing despot and disciplinarian, arguably, was the most successful of the TBVC states leaders. The greatest betrayal of Mangope‘s dreams for ‘his people’ were inadvertently and foolishly aborted by himself.
He rejected overtures from the ANC, during talks about talks, which resulted in the conference for a democratic future, CODESA and thus frustrated efforts of rapprochement with the ANC. He strangely fell conspired with Afrikaner right wing groups led by one racist supremacist, Eugene Terreblanche.
Unbridled arrogance and abstinence made him erratic and robbed him of the chance to reach a détente with the ANC. Had Mangope embraced the dawn of the new dispensation, he could have possibly ended up as one of the greatest provincial administrators.
The Skweyiya commission of enquiry found no evidence of corruption against Mangope. His modest house in Motswedi must be haunted by Pik Botha ‘s grovel voice “ Mr President, it’s over “ and that’s how the cookie crumbled.
Kgosi Mangope ‘s death will be met by sadness from a few who benefited from his largesse and with indifference by the many his regime tormented. Kgosi Mangope was 94 years old at the time of his death.
May His Soul Rest In Peace.
