Botswana: Festus Mogae Pragmatic Patriot and Global Statesman

Gaborone — As an economist, politician, and, perhaps most instrumentally, in his temperament, the late Festus Gontebanye Mogae was an old-school liberal.

His liberal values combined with his candor made him stand out as something of an anomaly among his twenty-first-century peers in leadership positions around the world.

He exhibited a rare combination of personality and worldview that, somewhat ironically, contributed to his exceptional ability to place Botswana, along with himself, in the…