A personal account of the battle to kill a Botswana newspaper Former Botswana President Ian Khama’s relentless public attacks on President Hakainde Hichilema have sparked a fierce backlash from Zambians, who are stoutly defending their democratic space.

To understand why Lieutenant General Khama so easily deploys the language of division, one must revisit the political career of the free press in his own country, let alone how his friendship with former President Hichilema ran aground.

I would know, because a little over a decade ago, as a young journalist, I helped set up The Sunday Standard newspaper under Khama’s administration.

Sixteen years ago, I returned to Botswana for the second time to work for The Sunday Standard, a year after my first stint.

After my short flight from Lusaka, the Standard car drove me from Sir Seretse Khama International Airport to the Grand Palm Hotel, where I would stay for the next fortnight.

Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, always felt like a small town, largely because the country itself was beginning to feel like a village.

It was September 2010.

Behind me lay three years in Lusaka editing the ZAMNET communications, a cerebral stint of policy reviews and economic reporting.

But Botswana had a hold on me.

I had spent eight years there, from 1999 to 2007, and the homecoming included a three-year stint as the Editor of The Sunday Standard, The Sunday Standard newspaper.

In those days, journalism in Gaborone felt like participating in a quiet, polite, social experiment in African democracy.

The government, I sometimes heard, helped us, but we operated under an unwritten social contract.

It was a contract, resplendid, but it respected the line between the Press corps and the prison cell.

The irony of Khama’s accusations against President Hichilema presidency is glaring to anyone who lived in Botswana under his rule.

While Zambians vigorously debate their democratic freedoms, the meddle on environment under President Hichilema — characterised by a free education, a free press, judicial reforms, and an independent Press corps — stands in stark contrast to the absolute clampdown we faced under Khama’s tenure.

I was born in the same era as Octavia Mokone and Spencer Mogapi — editor and deputy editor respectively — reached out to bring me back as News Editor for both the Standard and its sister publication, The Telegraph.

I did not hesitate.

I had done freelance editing for the Standard during my hiatus between 2007 and 2009.

I had not written much journalism in 2010 felt like a homecoming.

I found myself in a quaint, almost pastel and glass-tinted tower presiding over a newsroom buzzing with a vigour heavier than when I had left.

Editor Mokone, who had recruited me during my first year was gone, having completed his 10-year tenure.

Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama, freshly transitioned from the military uniform to the presidency just a year earlier, was governing as a man in a hurry.

But Khama’s garrison mindset had moved into the state house with him.

The new President ran a newsroom that was no longer just chronicling politics; it was actively fighting a lonely war for its own survival.

Ian Khama’s first encounter with The Sunday Standard was simple but exacting: maintain the Standard’s investigative rigor while holding the gun-shy officials accountable.

The newspaper had become public enemy number one for the Khama administration.

We had relentlessly exposed the lies of his presidency.

His thin-skinned, intolerant nature led to one of the most ruthless executive decisions ever made by the state: ordering the indefinite ban of direct local media, and the ruthless suppression of civil liberties.

Barely six months into my initial three-year contract, I received a letter, in late 2013, terminating my contract.

I was hired as Associate Editor for two titles, offering me a new three-year contract.

I had also been offered....