page 441 - Long Walk Original Manuscript [LWOM_441.jpg]

Timbuktu, once a leading African education centre, Guinea's Sekou Toure whose defiant stand against De Gaulle marked him as amongst those African leaders who wanted to make a clean break with all forms of imperialism and Ghana which as the first African independent state in the 50s had become a Mecca attracting freedom fighters and professional people from many parts of Southern Africa. Above all I hoped to visit the battle fields in Algeria and see with my own eyes actual combat.

Guerilla warfare had already started in the Cameroons and in Angla and I was anxious to visit these countries as well and learn from their experiences. But of immediate interest to me was the prospect of meeting Seretse Khama who had just formed the Democratic Party and who was staking out his claim to the first premiership of an independent Botswana. Independent states on our borders were of far more immediate importance to us than distant Ghana, Guinea, Ethiopia and Algeria.

We arrived at Lobatsi in the afternoon and immediately called at the offices of the Bechuanaland Air Safaris where we learnt that a telegram had been received from Dar Es Salaam postponing the trip for a fortnight. We put up with my fellow Treason Trialist Fish Keitsing who had left South Africa and settled there.

The next morning I met Professor K.T. Motsete, president of the Bechuanaland Peopeles Party (BPP), Kgaboesele, treasurer, Fish and others and we immediately discussed the political situation. My symphaties were distinctly in favour of the BPP because it was formed mainly by