The Botswana government has sealed off its Botswana-Zimbabwe border. Botswana Defence Forces have been deployed allegedly with heavy artillery, along the long boarder between the two neighbors.

It is suspected that this is the first step Botswana is taking along with breaking ties with Zimbabwe,as it reviews its recognition and legitimacy of the Zimbabwean government. Botswana might recall its ambassador Pelokgale Seloma from Harare and expel his Zimbabwean counterpart.

In an interview with Botswana Sunday Standard, Botswana minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Brigadier Dikgakgamatso Seretse, said, “This is a very sensitive matter, therefore, I can neither confirm nor deny any deployment of soldiers along the Zimbabwe-Botswana boarder.”

Early this week Botswana become the first African country to publicly declare that it will not recognize Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe and called for the African Union on Tuesday to exclude Zimbabwe from its meetings because a disputed election did not give the government legitimacy.

“In our considered view, it therefore follows that the representatives of the current government in Zimbabwe should be excluded from attending SADC and African Union meetings,” Vice President Mompati Merafhe said.

It has emerged that during the closed door session on Tuesday evening, the Vice President of Botswana Mompati Merafhe said for all the reasons outlined in the reports of the observer missions of SADC, the AU and the Pan African Parliament, his country “does not confer legitimacy on the government of President Mugabe”.

Merafhe proceeded to call for the exclusion of the “representatives of the current Zimbabwean ‘government’” from all future SADC and African meetings, saying their participation “would give unqualified legitimacy to a process which cannot be considered legitimate.”

Botswana also added its voice on Thabo Mbeki’s mediation efforts,”The personalities for the mediation process should be acceptable to both parties. It is also Botswana’s strong view that the mediation process must treat both parties as equals,” Merafhe said.

The Botswana government just issued a statement saying they had not closed its border with Zimbabwe or severed ties with the country.

“Botswana has neither severed ties with Zimbabwe, nor taken any steps to disrupt normal cross-border relations,” the country said in a statement.

Botswana reassured the public that earlier media reports alleging that Botswana had closed its border were without substance.

However Botswana still maintained that elections did not meet the required minimum standard of free and fair and therefore did not legitimize Robert Mugabe’s government.