… Accuses Principal Chief of Recruiting Arsonists
BILLY NTAOTE
Tensions between local communities and contractors working on a new phase of the Lesotho Water Highlands Project (LHWP) have culminated in the Malingoaneng Principal Chief being charged with hiring men to torch his lover’s home.
Principal Chief Qetho Sekonyela and his lover, Mamotonosi Sekonyela have two children together and are estranged. Mamotonosi had started dating a contractor working on the Polihali Dam construction site. As punishment for this, her house was set alight by men said to be hired by her former lover and father of her children.
It is no secret in the region that men like Chief Sekonyela, do not take kindly to “their women” having relations with construction workers and, in some cases, earn extra money by selling their bodies to the same construction workers. This animosity is exacerbated by the fact that most of these contractors are foreigners, whose majority are from South Africa.
Principal Chief Sekonyela allegedly recruited Tloha-re-buoe Area Chief Masiphole Sekonyela and thirteen other men to torch Mamotonosi Sekonyela’s house, with whom he has two children.
Other suspects are Boleba Hlaha, Rethabile Koekoe, Busang Mothokoa, Motlatsi Nketu, Halejoetse Sentle, Issac Pule, Tomeneke Thethana, Mopalami Ramotloenya, Khethang Thethana, Molebo Nketu, Refeletse Nqatso, Mathai Nyapisi and Katleho Sekonyela.
The group, including Chief Sekonyela, has appeared in court and is facing four charges of arson, malicious damage to property, assault and common theft. Sekonyela denies recruiting arsonists to torch the house of his ex-mistress.
‘Mamotonosi believes her house (pictured above) was torched by residents on Sekonyela’s instructions after she landed herself a lover among contractors working on the LHWP’s Polihali Dam construction site.
The suspects’ last appearance before Mokhotlong Resident Magistrate Makopano Taole was on September 21 and their next hearing date is pencilled for December 14.
LHWP is a multi-phased project whose two primary aims are to transfer water to ‘South Africa’s economic hub of Gauteng and clean energy for Lesotho.
Phase I of the project, which comprises the Katse and Mohale dams as well as ‘Muela Hydropower Station, was completed in 2002.
To date, Lesotho has received M13.4 billion for transferring 17,863.4 cubic metres of water to South Africa.
At the completion of Polihali Dam, under Phase II, Lesotho will increase the amount of water being transferred to South Africa, as well as revenue generated in water royalties for the landlocked nation.
Torched to the ground
On the morning of March 18, 2021, the day her house was set alight, ’Mamotonosi tells MNN how a group of rural men, in two convoys, visited her house. Their mission was to inform her that she, along with a neighbour only identified as ‘Matiisetso, were being summoned to Chief Masiphole’s office in Tloha-re-buoe. Later, a third group of armed men and women came to her home. Principal Chief Sekonyela’s wife, ‘Mathato Sekonyela was part of this group, which also included two police officers in plain clothes. The group escorted her to the gathering at Masiphole’s office.
“On arrival, Chief Masiphole said I am accused of adultery,” ‘Mamotonosi told MNN. She explains that charges were read out before the community meeting. Principal Chief Sekonyela was also present and presided over the meeting. The charges were:
“That I am being mentored by ‘Matiisetso to insult my neighbours. I was also accused of having an affair with one of the Polihali Dam construction workers who usually parked his vehicle near ‘Matiisetso’s house,” said ’Mamotonosi.
While conceding to having responded to disparaging remarks made about her adulterous relations with Chief Sekonyela who bore two children and a new one with a construction worker. However, ‘Mamotonosi says she denied allegations levelled against her at the March 2021 gathering about her alleged insults to her neighbours.
The hearing before the chief ended in a decision to banish ‘Mamotonosi and ‘Matiisetso from the village with immediate effect. But Chief Sekonyela told MNN, “I intervened and suggested that they should rather be given two days to prepare to leave the village and relocate to another village.”
Sekonyela also explained that the police officers present at the meeting pleaded for leniency and said the two women should be allowed to stay in the village. He argued that ‘Mamotonosi’s house would still be intact had the police not insisted that the two women be allowed to stay in their home village.
Chief Sekonyela accuses Senior Inspector Khatleli of failing to preserve law and order and, in doing so, fueling the Tloha-re-buoe people’s tempers. The Chief argues that the police intervention caused the villagers to incinerate ’Mamotonosi’s home.
But Khatleli disagrees. He told MNN the Tloha-re-bue incident was orchestrated with the influence of Chief Sekonyela.
MNN has learned from sources who refused to be named for fear of reprisals that Chief Sekonyela aided the torching of ’Mamotonosi’s home by beating an unnamed man who tried to stop the arson.
Escaping death by a whisker
After the hearing in which she narrowly escaped being banished, ‘Mamotonosi described how she went about her evening chores as usual in her one-roomed thatched house with her two children. Matiisetso was also there that evening.
“We heard my boyfriend (contractor) hooting loudly outside, we were recollecting an earlier morning incident with ‘Matiisetso,” she says, refusing to name her boyfriend.
“I rushed to his vehicle and upon entering, he sped away using the under-construction road. We had not travelled far from my house when a stone hit the vehicle and my boyfriend told me to hide so people would not see me in the vehicle”.
“Then a man appeared and tried to block the road. This infuriated my boyfriend, who wanted to shoot the man blocking our way. I calmed him down, and we drove to his camp,” ’Mamotonosi said.
“To my shock, it was only when we had arrived at his camp that he told me there was a gang of men who were instructed to go fight me and he was rescuing me.
“When I called around to verify what he said, I only managed to get a response from my other neighbour, Ntsokeleng, who only told me she feared to check on my house because of a crowd of men outside, near her home. Later on, she called and informed me my house was on fire,” ’Mamotonosi said who believes she escaped death by a whisker that night.
’Mamotonosi’s elderly aunt, ’Maphetetsi Sekonyela, alleges: “Qetho Sekonyela is the one who summoned his subjects to gather and instructed them to go burn my niece’s house”.
She alleges, in an interview with MNN, that her son was part of the men who were instructed to burn a house. ‘Maphetetsi says her son only had a change of heart after realising that the house in question was that of ‘Mamotonosi.
“They (suspected arsonists) walked up the hill towards ’Mamotonosi’s house. My son tells me that he returned on the way after learning that they were called to go burn ‘Mamotonosi’s house,” ’Maphetetsi said.
‘Mamotonosi reported the fire to the Mapholaneng police, who could not attend the incident immediately owing to lack of vehicles.
“Police only came to the scene the following day and my house had been burned down, its roofing collapsed inside,” she said.
Contacted for comment, Sekonyela denied the allegations. He says Masiphole called and pleaded with him to intervene as some men in the community were plotting to burn the houses of ’Mamotonosi and ’Matiisetso.
“One of the houses they wanted to burn was owned by ’Matiisetso and we successfully stopped them from doing so. But later in the night Mamotonosi’s house was burned, we don’t know who burned it,” said Chief Sekonyela
He accuses ‘Mamotonosi of being an arsonist who burned two of her family’s houses in an attempt to kill her brother in the fire.
“How do we know she did not burn her own house? Why didn’t her neighbours help her? She lit her two houses before, why wouldn’t she burn this one?” asked Chief Sekonyela
‘Mamotonosi currently stays in Mokhotlong town in a house gifted to her by the District Administrator.
“I could not stay with any of my relatives in the village because they refused to help me, saying they feared Ntate Qetho,” ‘Mamotonosi said.
Deteriorating moral fibre
MNN has learned that take-off of Polihali Dam advance infrastructure construction has brought with it an influx of migrant workers flocking to work at the project in Mokhotlong.
LHWP construction has seen Malingoaneng ward in the district of Mokhotlong have its society’s social fabric negatively impacted as women, (married and single) and young girls from impoverished families, find themselves pushed by poverty into transactional sex with migrant workers.
Sometimes all these women get, according to MNN investigations, is a chance to party, get free booze or much needed food parcels. This has brought much chagrin of their husbands and boyfriends.
LHWP implementing agency, Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA), says Deputy Polihali branch manager Koali Hlasoa told MNN they have deployed social workers to provide psychosocial support to the community members in order for families to understand and cope with consequences that often come with an influx of migrants.
Hlasoa said this includes focused parent and child session where issues of sexual exploitation are discussed.
The Polihali Branch Manager Gerald Mokone said that the company has various strategies and programs being put in place to ensure that employment is not for migrants alone but also for local men in order to ensure they are empowered to provide for their families.
“We also have a program where we certify brick layers so that they can earn higher wages when engaged in our construction works and these we believe go a long way to lessen destruction in families where lack of income causes women to be wooed into extramarital affairs with migrant workers.
“But it must be clear that changing people’s social behaviour is not an easy thing to achieve. When these women want to go into the camps, you cannot stop them as they can do anything,” Mokone said.
