20091222
allafrica

The year 2009 has come and gone. It was a good year for some and a bad one for others. It was a year characterised by many developments locally, regionally and internationally.

This year recorded many extra-judicial killings and this made people to even think that the country was degenerating into a police state. In fact, there was a ground swell of opinion against the setting up of the Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS) which was deemed to be a witch-hunt organ for the state. Even as we speak, the DIS is in the news. They are accused for killing people willy-nilly.

In the region, the focus was on Zimbabwe where the incumbent President Robert Mugabe was accused of cheating during the national general elections. There were protracted negotiations between Mugabe of the ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Prior to elections, ZANU-PF operatives terrorised MDC supporters and the playing field was not level going into the elections.

During this year, the world was hit by the economic recession. Botswana was not spared.

The recession is still on going though there are indications that things will improve in 2010. It is our wish that things improve soon so that the quality of life of ordinary citizens improves.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish Batswana a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. This is a time when we should all reflect on our failures and achievements over the last 12 months. We should take it upon ourselves to see where we went wrong and correct so that when the New Year comes we do things better. Where we did well we should maintain and try even harder.

We would like to urge Batswana to drink responsibly over the festive season. It has become a tendency for some people to over indulge in alcohol during the holidays. This is not good at all. We all know the repercussions of this habit as many of our families have been affected. We should not be drinking and driving. Please let us also condomise (if you can't abstain) for the HIV pandemic is still upon us.

We hope to meet all of you in 2010 when we get ready for the biggest sports event, FIFA World Cup, which will be held for the first time in our continent. We are luckier that the event is taking place just next door.