Roy Sesana mollycoddles with Govt

Former leader of the First People of the Kalahari (FPK) Roy Sesana or Tobee Tcori in his native language, seems to be dancing a completely new song if information reaching The Midweek Sun from his Private Public Relations Officer is anything to go by.

In an effort to smoke a peace pipe with government where Sesana is currently employed, the Basarwa civic leader has since broken ranks with the militant FPK to form the Roy Sesana Foundation. Sesana’s spokesperson who said his business name is Mr Bon explained that the Roy Sesana Foundation will have nothing to do with FPK, which is renowned for rubbing government the wrong way.

“When Sesana realised that some whites were using him to gain some mileage and finance, he reflected on the objectives of FPK only to find that they were not making any improvements in the livelihood of his people hence he decided to abandon FPK in order to form what will represent the needs of his people without any friction with the government,” Bon explained.

He pointed out that the new foundation will strive to preserve the culture of the Bushmen so that the next generation will learn a lot from their ancestors. Bon explained that following the death of FPK in 2013, Sesana opted to incorporate another organisation like FPK which he said will advocate for San culture.“As we speak, the name has been approved and we are busy putting finishing touches to the constitution which we believe will be ready in a very short period of time.

Furthermore, a business woman in Gantsi has pledged to give us land in which we are going to construct a building to house the foundation which will have an international museum strictly for San artefacts since they are very gifted in that regard. Apart from artefacts, we will make it a point that we sell the san culture including music and dance to the international world unlike in the past whereby the only known thing about them was a bitter war with the government.

Fighting our very own government will not help us achieve anything at all hence our decision to communicate with the government in the most civil way,” he said. Bon added that Sesana is a very good leader who in 2005 won an international award in Sweden, the Right Livelihood Award which has only been bestowed on a few individuals including, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai who also went on to win a Nobel prize as well as Nigerian Ken-Saro Wiwa.

When quizzed as to why they are registering the foundation now when Sesana is now a civil servant, Bon explained that the foundation was long planned for before Sesana was employed as a civil servant. “Look we have nothing to gain by engaging the government in a war which will not take us anywhere as we only want the Bushmen to gain recognition across the globe through their culture not violence or unnecessary skirmishes they used to have in the past. We will approach our government in the most civil way to attain our mandate of promoting San culture,” he added.

Now a government employee, Sesana could not be drawn into commenting on his new affiliations, choosing to direct all questions to his newfound Private PR who is currently the director at Khumo and Associates, a firm of Company Secretaries, Accountants and Business consultants based in Gantsi.