‘LCN has not lost it’s bite, political terrain has changed’
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are essential to the defence of human rights because they work to stop specific abuses, provide aid, advocate for changes to relevant legislation, contribute to its development and spread information on the same abuses. TEBOHO KHATEBE MOLEFI (PE) this week spoke to Lesotho Council of NGOs (LCN) director, SEKONYELA MAPETJA (SM), for a glimpse on how the institution impacts the local scene in championing the protection of citizens’ rights.
PE: The term non-governmental or non-profit is normally used to cover the range of organisations which constitute civil society. In general these are organisations characterised by having a non-commercial purpose for their existence. What is LCN’s mandate?
SM: We are the mother body of NGOs in Lesotho, formed in 1990 to coordinate NGOs in the country. We offer capacity building, and have a fiduciary duty to our members and act as a mouthpiece for the NGO movement. Membership is voluntary, and to date we have more than 150 members, which range from community-based groups to large NGOs like World Vision Lesotho and Red Cross Lesotho.
Our vision is to lead inclusive, robust co-ordinated CSOs in Lesotho for transformative human development in an open civic space. Our mission is to co-ordinate, advocate, and strengthen capacity of CSOs to effectively deliver on their individual mandates; we are people-centred, pro-poor, human-rights centric and do these guided by our core values of justice and tolerance, integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness and equal participation and inclusivity.
PE: What is the variety of your enterprises and activities?
SM: The LCN has programmes in many fields for ease of co-ordinating our members. Our co-ordination framework is like that of CSOs/NGOs that have a grouping under a staff member qualified in the field working as a co-ordinator. These groupings include the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Commission; Democracy and Human Rights Commission; Disaster and Humanitarian Relief Commission; Economic Justice Commission; Health, Education and Social Development Commission; and, the Women and Children Commission.
A member NGO can join one or up to four commissions depending, on its programmes.
PE: What are the transparency and accountability or governance mechanisms in place here, per your mandate?
SM: We have a mandate to enforce transparency, accountability and governance and we have developed tools to that effect. The LCN holds trainings for its members and even parliament on this cardinal governance ethos. We do budget analysis every year, we conduct budget performance, issue policy briefs and train parliamentary portfolio committees. We interface with the Auditor General and a whole lot of things to ensure good governance.
PE: What is your compliance record over the last 3/5 years?
SM: We have clear audits, and our compliance is good.
PE: How frequently do you meet with your key stakeholders to introspect and refresh your mandate and what do you do there?
SM: We have followed our governance structure to the letter; we have not missed an AGM even in a single year. Our Board of Directors meets religiously to review progress, approve budgets. We also hold the NGO Week annually – where we have conferences in various thematic areas.
PE: Who are regional, continental or international NGOs in the same space or in general that you consider as benchmarks?
SM: We work closely with Amnesty International, Transparency International, the UN and the Southern African Council of NGOs.
PE: Article 1 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders provides that ‘Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels’. How is this weaved into your activities?
SM: We write and submit human rights report. Last year we presented a shadow report on the Universal Periodic Review in Switzerland and this year we are preparing a shadow report on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). We, in fact, monitor Lesotho’s compliance and reporting obligation of all seven Human Rights Treaties that she is signatory to; we can safely say the country has a serious backlog on reporting despite hosting a team of experts on the rights of the child, whose headquarters is here in Maseru.
PE: Shadow reports are submitted to UN and other human rights monitoring bodies to give an NGO perspective of the real situation regarding the enjoyment of human rights in a particular country. Have the reports you compiled made an impact?
SM: Shadow reporting is one of our trump cards. We do shadow reporting on all seven major UN treaties that Lesotho has signed and ratified and indeed the last one was last September, there was a report that was due in Geneva which we presented.
We are preparing another report that is going to deal with the UDHR.
The past report was a critical review of human rights and this has serious impact because there are outstanding matters that Lesotho should actually commit to finalise as in cases where the country is lined for major funding these are always brought up. One of the things that we take pride in is the law that acknowledges the rights of people with disabilities, the rights of a child and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. These are as a result of shadow reporting in which we said things are not going well.
So, they have impact, hence you see governments and sometimes parliament called to pass laws even at night, it is because of the impact of these reports that we do.
PE: At nearly every level of the aforesaid there are different attempts to preserve the dignity of individual citizens when this is threatened by the power of the state. How far has the LCN gone to satisfy this UN Article in the country?
SM: LCN is and continues to be the mouthpiece of the oppressed. In fact, in our values, we are not shy to say we are tilted towards the poor. If someone says we are biased, indeed we are biased towards the poor, the oppressed, the marginalised and those that will not have a say on their issues. We rebuke and we issue statements and press releases to provide confidence for the general population.
Currently, there is an ongoing threat, maybe a perceived threat, about the involvement of the army in national affairs. Yes, on record we have written and met with the army to indicate that when they come into the public space there should be parameters within law and the constitution, not only as they may wish. I think we are still upholding the principle up to now, as we do this as a matter of principle.
Of course, government is a powerful tool if you want power, that is why politicians will fight for governance because that is the centre of power and those who are in power will perpetually want to shrink the civic space and it is our inherent duty to open that space on behalf of those that need to freely participate in their affairs of the nation.
So, that the space is shrinking is not a surprise to us, it is by design that the government would want to shrink that space and ours is to open the space to enjoy the freedoms as enshrined in the UN Charters that Lesotho is signatory to.
PE: And there is fighting individual violations of human rights either directly or by supporting particular ‘test cases’ through relevant courts processes – does this interest you and has it been a route you have taken at any given time?
SM: Very much so.
PE: What about offering direct assistance to those whose rights have been violated, lobbying for changes to national, regional or international law, helping to develop the substance of laws and promoting knowledge of, and respect for, human rights among the population?
SM: The LCN works on promoting the rule of law and upholding of Human Rights, fighting on behalf of those whose rights are infringed. In the GBV arena we work with the relevant line ministry and the CGPU arm within the police.
It’s a known factor that Lesotho has had perpetual post-elections conflict whereby political leaders who lose elections often fled to RSA; it is the LCN that facilitated and negotiated the return of those who ran to exile. Some politicians go on to claim the glory that they facilitated the return of their exiled fellows, which is not true.
But we are not in the business of competition as to who did what. Ours is to ensure that the rights of individuals are protected and once that is achieved through our mediation and or facilitation we move to help new ones who need assistance.
We have helped communities affected by major projects when those in authority infringe on their rights. We have assisted farmers when they could not sell their products abroad, when they were at loggerheads with ministries responsible for their trade. These would be the poultry and the wool mohair farmers as an example.
PE: The contribution of NGOs, and the LCN in this case, is important not only in terms of the results that are achieved, but also for the optimism that people may feel about the defence of human rights in the country. Would you say Basotho are satisfied with the length you go in speaking out against encroachment on their rights?
SM: The work we do, with limited resources or at times with no resources to even pay staff salaries, on its own is an indicator that the work we do will never satisfy every Mosotho. But if we are to rate ourselves given the constraints, we can safely say indeed we are holding high.
PE: There is a fundamental strategy lying at the base of all forms of NGO activism, the idea of attempting to name and shame or show up the perpetrators of injustice. How often do you do this, and has it been effective?
SM: That’s a working strategy. This is evidenced by the number of press briefs we issue, from time to time.
PE: Governments are very often able to shirk their obligations under international treaties, or other rights standards, that they have signed up to because the impact of their policies is simply not known to the general public. What is your role here, how do you sensitise the public on the scope of their rights and what they ought to expect from government?
SM: The Constitution of Lesotho, specifically Section 20, grants individual citizens the right to participate, and categorically indicates that a citizen has the right to participate in the way we are governed through his or her representative or in his or her own accord.
As a result, when we teach people about their rights, we tell them to put emphasis on the fact that they have a right to participate in government. We also deal with the notion that government only understands political language.
When we deal with that we understand that the government would want to shrink the space and oftentimes government thrives on ignorance or on people who do not have knowledge of their rights, so it is our duty to impart that knowledge. We do that through civic education, and it must be underscored that I am not talking about voter education, but general civic education that empowers people to hold their government accountable.
This we do through making citizens aware of the social accountability tools that they can attest and use to determine whether they are given the services that the government has vowed to give them.
We use tools like community score cards, social audits, do budget analysis and budget tracking with communities in order for them to enjoy the rights and participate in one way in matters affecting them. We are also focused in the local government arena, the Local Government Act allows the general public to come and observe sittings of their respective councils. We are aware that, like I have said, governments would want to shrink the space.
PE: Do you put pressure on governments by identifying issues that will appeal to people’s sense of injustice and then making it public, and not only by writing letters to complain?
SM: Yes, we do put pressure on the government beyond letters or press releases and that is one of our main tools. We also do policy briefs. Policy briefs are very important and very effective as they talk to the policies that the government has signed or has agreed it is going to use as a tool to deliver services to the people.
So, we do policy briefs that analyse their policy implementation and challenges and come with recommendations as to what should happen. Apart from that, we also use social accountability tools like I have said earlier on; these help a great deal to access the level of services that the people get and the justices that are there, so, we measure their performance through those.
PE: Street actions or demonstrations, with the media coverage that these normally attract, may be used when organisations want to enlist the support of the public or to bring something into the public eye in order to name and shame a government or its officials. Have you ever considered this?
SM: Yes, indeed we do that and we organise very successful public demonstrations. Of course, public demonstration is one of those advocacy strategies that we are saying are at the highest level of civic disobedience when people that need to hear your message do not heed to it. We do that and on record have had successful stay aways and demonstrations.
But before we do that, we would have travelled a long road in terms of trying to knock sense on the duty bearers to understand that they are not there to serve themselves but there for the service of the nation. As a result, they need to give the services because when people are paying tax, they are not asked to pay tax. You don’t have your opinion on tax, you are obliged to pay tax and, as a result, it is equally an obligation for the duty bearers and the government to give you services.
PE: The media will frequently play an important part in lobbying practices, and social media and the Internet are now assuming an increasingly significant role, how do you make use of the media in your campaigns to effect change?
SM: Yes, we are friends with the media and we use the media a lot, be it print, radio or even internet. If you can check our media platforms as LCN you will realise that indeed we use that as a successful tool for lobbying and even when we have campaigns, we have them with the media in charge.
The significance of is that having said things in the boardrooms, having written letters to authorities sometimes it doesn’t ring a bell to some but once that happens, we engage the media and the world knows.
PE: Have there been any high profile campaigns by the LCN in the country? What was the outcome?
SM: There has been a number of high-profile campaigns by the LCN in this country. We can go back to 1994 during the Palace coup, it was the LCN that ensured that there is restoration of the elected government back into power; it was the LCN that facilitated amnesty for those who were involved in that.
We could go back to 1998 at the time of the year’s internal strife when Maseru went up in flames. We could mention 2007 when the outcome of the elections saw political parties deciding to go the Mixed Member Proportional representation route. Remember that the SADC envoy, Sir Ketumile Masire, was a mediator, and he pointed to the improper parliamentary seat allocation which favoured those that were in government then. We took that up and said the country will not burn again like it did in 1998 and, as a result, we mediated between the opposition and the government. The outcome of that was amendment to laws leading to the first formal coalition government in 2012.
Again, we launched a campaign when we realised that the reforms agenda seemed to have stagnated: we took it upon ourselves to help government going into the country and gathering Basotho’s views on seven thematic areas as to what it is that they want to be changed and how they want it and we compiled that and that was given to the National Reforms Authority (NRA)…the rest is history.
What served as the basis for the NRA’s work was what the LCN collected from the people. I will repeat that we took to the forefront when political leaders had fled the country and we brought them here. All political leaders that left since 2012, that ran away, it was LCN that facilitated their coming into the country, and we now know that it is now a thing of the past that people would have to go into exile after elections.
PE: The 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights – known as the Vienna Conference – was attended by 841 NGOs from throughout the world, all of which described themselves as working with a human rights mission. Though an impressive figure in itself, this actually represented only a tiny fraction of the total number of human rights NGOs active in the world. Do you think civil society is doing enough to speak out against human rights abuses?
SM: Indeed, we are doing the utmost, and our efforts are a testament that NGOs are holding the fort. But human rights work in not a walk in the park. Civic space will continue to shrink and NGOs will continue fighting for these enshrined freedoms and liberties.
PE: We all know that civil and political rights are just one category of the many different human rights recognised by the international community, and new rights are continuing to emerge, even today. What other areas are of interest to the LCN nationally and across the world?
SM: The LCN has been founded to co-ordinate its members across the spectrum and in order for us to do that we are organised into six sectoral commissions, whereby there are organisations dealing with environment, agriculture and natural resources.
There are geo-political rights on issues on environment and we also have economic justice issues, where we are dealing with policies, dealing with major projects, the dams, the highlands water project and the mining industry.
Health and education issues, the education curriculum that we have…when you talk to people on the streets every person asks what is it that our children are being fed at school? What type of education schools produce, what type of individuals? Will it help the economy of the country?
It is our interest to say that the three tier type of curriculum that we have needs to be supported because it is the right way to go and it needs to be supported by finances and it should be budgeted for.
There are also children rights. Children should be heard today because whatever we are doing, the beneficiaries of our actions are children, so they should shape that future that they would want to enjoy.
PE: How do you influence processes in these areas of interest?
SM: We understand that government only understands policy language, so, in all all these areas we strive for policy where there is no policy, we do policy briefs to say there is need for this policy, we interact and interface with that policy. Vigorously, that is how we influence processes.
And we do that by influencing policy by saying what does the policy say and we talk with government or a line ministry on the policies that they have issued to say this is how they are going to run the ministry or department.
PE: The challenge for human rights education is to focus on questions of participation, accessibility and inclusiveness, how do you fare in this regard?
SM: The question goes back to what I said earlier that dealing with human rights issues is not a walk in the park, at times when political parties or politics are at play people would want to say: “But why don’t you say anything, you are silent.” There is politics at play at times, but when rights are infringed then we come in and mediate.
PE: As we wrap up, there is a growing chorus from politicians that the LCN has lost its bite, and that you kowtow to all sitting regimes for endearment and possible personal gain…your comment on that?
SM: Yes, indeed. But you cannot choose what people say. That is not only said by politicians, even from within, even from the ranks it is always said that “the past leadership in the LCN had a bite.”
We still have the grip on things, but it should be noted that in the yesteryear there was no proliferation of many political parties like there are, and it was very easy to say “we go this way” and people would go that way.
Today things are different, you need to consider a lot of things and the third generation rights that were not thought of in the yesteryear are there today.
As a result, when you do things you need to proceed strategically; you need to employ an intelligent way of doing things rather than forcing things down people’s throats. When individuals grow and move they are at liberty to choose what they want to do, but organisations will still remain. When people see individuals move they should not say that the organisation has moved. The organisation is still here and it is still doing a lot of good work that it is formed to do. So people move and we are fine with that one.
Even the current leadership will move away. We are not going to stay here. So, the organisation is going to stay, so can it be given a chance to thrive with the leadership it has at any given time.
