{"id":43209,"date":"2014-08-30T15:00:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-30T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=43209"},"modified":"2014-08-30T17:09:38","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T17:09:38","slug":"lesotho-coup-forces-pm-thabane-to-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=43209","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho ‘coup’ forces PM Thabane to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The prime minister of the southern African kingdom of Lesotho has fled to South Africa, alleging a coup by the army and saying his life is in danger.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC, Thomas Thabane said he would return from South Africa, which surrounds Lesotho, “as soon as I know I am not going to get killed”.<\/p>\n

Reports say the capital, Maseru, is now calm after soldiers seized buildings. The army denied staging a coup.<\/p>\n

Lesotho has seen a series of military coups since independence in 1966.<\/p>\n

Mr Thabane has headed a unity government since, but suspended parliament sessions in June amid feuding in his coalition.<\/p>\n

He denied accusations that his actions had undermined his government.<\/p>\n

\"Basuto<\/div>\n
Lesotho is a largely rural country dominated by mountains and surrounded on all sides by South Africa<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Illegal coup’<\/p>\n

Mr Thabane said the army had rendered the government “dysfunctional”, an action that amounted to a coup.<\/p>\n

“I have been removed from control not by the people but by the armed forces, and that is illegal,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I came into South Africa this morning and I will return as soon as my life is not in danger. I will not go back to Lesotho to get killed.”<\/p>\n

\"Grey<\/div>\n

At the scene: Basildon Peta, Maseru, Lesotho<\/strong><\/p>\n

This whole thing started around 03:00. There were gunshots since early morning. The city is currently calm. People are playing it safe within their homes, but there is basically a media blackout.<\/p>\n

To all intents and purposes it is a military coup with the aim of ousting the prime minister. There can be no other reason of soldiers behaving the way they have been behaving other than to seize power.<\/p>\n

So far we have no reports of killings. It would be correct to call it a bloodless coup attempt. But I am not going to stick around. The chances are the situation may deteriorate. One does not know what is going to happen.<\/p>\n

Basildon Peta is the publisher of the Lesotho Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Grey<\/div>\n

The army is understood to have acted after the prime minister attempted to remove its chief, Lt Gen Kennedy Tlai Kamoli.<\/p>\n

The army said the general was still charge, saying the military “supports the democratically elected government of the day,” Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n

A spokesman, Maj Ntlele Ntoi, denied staging a coup, saying: “There is nothing like that, the situation has returned to normalcy… the military has returned to their barracks.”<\/p>\n

Earlier, troops were seen on the streets of Maseru and there were reports of gunfire.<\/p>\n

Radio stations were taken off air and phone lines were cut, although later reports suggested they were working again.<\/p>\n

Sports Minister Thesele Maseribane told the AFP news agency that troops had surrounded State House, a key government building.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prime minister of the southern African kingdom of Lesotho has fled to South Africa, alleging a coup by the army and saying his life is in danger. Speaking to the BBC, Thomas Thabane said he would return from South Africa, which surrounds Lesotho, “as soon as I know I am not going to get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":43211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-43209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}