After
Page 138. them about it. If they do, I will kill them in the same way as I have killed Mochesela. Take the body now to the house of Steve, where it will remain until Tuesday, when those of you who live near will take it to a place where people will see it. this she left for her home with her two attendants followed by the doctor and another man carrying the billy-can and the pieces of flesh. The rest carried Mochesela's body to Steve's hut, where it remained wrapped in his blanket and placed in a wool pack until Tuesday night. Then it was carried to some low cliffs near the village and after some of the clothing had been placed on the grass and on a tree nearby, it was thrown over and then dragged a little further downhill, to be found there the following morning.
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APPENDIX B
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CONCLUSIONS OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS
In July 1949, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State for Common wealth Relations, the High Commissioner for Basutoland, the Bechuanaland Protectorate and Swaziland, appointed Mr. G. I. Jones, Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, to enquire into and report on:-
(1) the nature and significance of the large numbers of murders which had
recently occurred in Basutoland;
(2) the proximate and underlying causes of the apparently increased incidence
of the crime; and
(3) the steps which the Basutoland Administration might take to remedy the
position.
2. The Secretary of State has now considered, in consultation with the High Commissioner, the report submitted by Mr. Jones, to whom the thanks of His Majesty's Government are due for his able, careful and thorough investigation of this difficult problem.
3. The Secretary of State accepts the report as eminently fair in its presentation of the historical causes of the outbreak of such murders in Basutoland in 1947 and 1948.
4. The Secretary of State accepts generally the recommendations in paragraphs 185-192 of the report for punitive and other action directed towards the early suppression of the outbreak.
Vigorous action, already taken by the local authorities during and since Mr. Jones's investigation, has been in large part successful in suppressing the outbreak, as Mr. Jones himself acknowledges in the introduction with which he has prefaced his report. Only one medicine murder is known to have been committed in 1950 and the successful investigation of that was made possible by the full and ready co-operation of the Native Authority. But as the report shows, the causes of the outbreak were deep-seated and it may be some time before it can safely be said that the murders have ceased. Nevertheless, the situation has so far improved as to make it unnecessary at present to consider adoption of Mr. Jones's suggestion for the stationing of additional police in certain areas at the cost of the local populace; this is a measure which the Secretary of State would be very reluctant to adopt.
5. The Secretary of State also accepts the recommendations in para- graphs 193-209 of the report, in which Mr. Jones defines closer association of the people of Basutoland with the work of government and the institution of less- centralised forms of administration as the longer-term political objectives which should be pursued.
Although development must inevitably be steady and gradual, further changes have already been effected in the native administration system within the past twelve months, as Mr. Jones has also acknowledged in his introduction. These changes are an important step towards closer association of the people with conduct of their local affairs. Enquiries of the type suggested by Mr. Jones will be conducted in close consultation with the Basuto to ascertain more precisely the most acceptable methods for iftucing further changes.
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