Botswana’s government deployed heavy security in the capital Gaborone for the second day on Friday 10 June as despairing union leaders announced a suspension of a seven-week civil service strike that has driven the peaceful nation to the brink of full-scale violence. Armed police backed by the paramilitary Special Support Group (SSG) and a helicopter were out in force on Thursday 9 June to prevent the striking workers from engaging in acts of violence and destruction that have accompanied the strike.

A new sex workers initiative in Botswana has included an LGBTI component in its programme. African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) is a Pan African movement and alliance for the rights of sex workers which was established in 2009 in Johannesburg South Africa, with a number of 105 sex workers from different countries in Africa. Sisonke Botswana, a sex work group currently housed by Botswana Network on Ethics Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), joined ASWA and dedicated a week to the mapping of sex workers rights in Botswana with the aim to forming a coalition which will advance the human health rights of most key population (sex workers, transgender, MSM and drug users).

'In simple terms, the struggle of the workers of Botswana is a struggle against the neo-liberal restructuring of the public sector, which is about sustained attacks on worker's rights, their conditions and access to services by communities,' says Bongani Masuku, International Relations Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions, on 'It is a struggle we all support and continue to wage in our own countries and globally. We support them and call for global solidarity, particularly because for far too long, Botswana has paraded itself as a paragon of democracy on the continent and now that myth is being exposed and debunked. Workers have a right to defend their pay and conditions, as well as demand better services for communities.'

Botswana public sector unions said on Monday (30 May) they had conditionally accepted a three per cent pay rise but a six-week strike that has shaken the ruling party's 45-year grip on power would continue until all demands were met. A spokesman for the Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) said the government must reinstate 1,500 sacked workers as part of a final settlement, and lift a 'no work, no pay' policy. The agreed average pay rise is a fraction of the 16 per cent first demanded by the 90,000 state workers, and less even than the five per cent on offer from the government of the landlocked southern African country, the world's biggest diamond producer.