Quett Masire

Sir Ketumile Joni Masire Quett ( born July 23, 1925 in Kanye ) was 1980-1998 President of Botswana.

Early years

Masire is one of the Bangwaketse and is the eldest son of his regents. After training as a teacher, he worked from 1949 to 1955 at the Seepapisto Secondary School.

Politician

In January 1962, he is one of the founders of the Bechuanaland Democratic Party, later the Botswana Democratic Party ( BDP ), which has ruled the country since 1965. Until 1966 he was first secretary of the party. As the party's founder and Prime Minister Seretse Khama after the independence of the former Bechuanaland on September 30, 1966 became President Masire took over the office of vice president, before he was Khama's deputy as head of government. For a time he was also Minister of Finance. After the death Khama on July 13, 1980 Masire was elected by Parliament as the successor and entered since Office on 18 July 1980. During the three elections during his tenure, the BDP was able to maintain its dominant role. Politically, he continued the line of its predecessor, making Botswana one of the most stable and economically successful countries in Africa remained. In foreign policy, the relationship with South Africa was his most difficult problem before the abolition of apartheid. An attack of the South African Army on suspected bases of the African National Congress in June 1985, he brought before the Security Council, but did not come to a break with South Africa. In 1991 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In November 1997, he announced his resignation. Festus Mogae was succeeded on 1 April 1998.

More career

For the Organization of African Unity (OAU ) in 1998, he took over the chairmanship of a commission of inquiry that investigated the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In 1999, he served as election observers for the parliamentary elections in Nigeria after the death of Sani Abacha. From 2000 to 2003 took over the task Masire to mediate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between the warring parties in the civil war. He later became chairman of the Global Africa Resource & Energy Corporation ( Garek ), a South African company based in Sandton. Masire maintains offices in other locations and is frequently invited as a guest speaker by universities worldwide.

Swell

• Fischer World Almanac - biographies of contemporary history since 1945, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985, ISBN 3596245532