Item: i109742

Authentic Coin of:

Lesotho
International Year of the Child 
1979 Proof Silver 10 Maloti 38.8mm (28.30 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.841 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 24
KINGDOM OF LESOTHO MOSHOESHOE I, Native bust facing right.
INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE CHILD 1979 10 MALOTI, Busts of 3 children.

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UNESCO proclaimed 1979 as the International Year of the Child. The proclamation was signed on January 1, 1979, by United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. A follow-up to the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the proclamation was intended to draw attention to problems that affected children throughout the world, including malnutrition and lack of access to education. Many of these efforts resulted in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

Numerous events took place within the UN and in member countries to mark the event, including the Music for UNICEF Concert, held at the UN General Assembly on January 9. WBZ-TV 4 in Boston, Massachusetts, along with the four other Group W stations, hosted and broadcast a celebratory festival, “Kidsfair” (usually held around Labor Day ever since) from Boston Common. A film festival showcasing international cartoon and film shorts focusing on children was held at the United Nations building in New York City on December 1, 1979. Canadian animator/director Eugene Fedorenko created a film for the National Film Board of Canada, called Every Child, which centered on a nameless baby who nobody wants because they are too busy with their own concerns. This was used to explain how every child is entitled to a home. Sound effects were created with the voices of Les Mimes Electriques.

Lesotho, officially the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: ‘Muso oa Lesotho), is an enclaved country within the border of South Africa. Along with the Vatican City and San Marino, it is one of only three independent states completely surrounded by the territory of another country, and the only one outside the Italian peninsula and that is not a microstate. Lesotho is just over 30,000 km² (11,583 sq mi) and has a population of around 2 million. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. The official language is Sesotho.

Lesotho was previously the British Crown Colony of Basutoland, but it declared independence from the United Kingdom on 4 October 1966. It is now a fully sovereign state and is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The name Lesotho roughly translates to “the land of the people who speak Sesotho”.

The original inhabitants of Lesotho were the San people. Examples of their rock art can be found in the mountains throughout the area.

Rule of Moshoeshoe I (1822-1868)

Modern Lesotho, then called Basutoland, emerged as a single polity under King Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1821 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, joining with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaqane associated with the reign of Shaka Zulu from 1818 to 1828.

Further evolution of the state emerged from conflicts between British Empire and Dutch colonists leaving the Cape Colony following its seizure from the French-allied Dutch by the British in 1795, and also from the Orange River Sovereignty and subsequent Orange Free State. Missionaries Thomas Arbousset, Eugène Casalis and Constant Gosselin from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, invited by Moshoeshoe I, were placed at Morija, developing Sesotho orthography and printed works in the Sesotho language between 1837 and 1855. Casalis, acting as translator and providing advice on foreign affairs, helped set up diplomatic channels and acquire guns for use against the encroaching Europeans and the Griqua people.

Trekboers from the Cape Colony arrived on the western borders of Basutoland and claimed rights to its land, the first of which being Jan de Winnaar, who settled in the Matlakeng area in May-June 1838. Incoming Boers attempted to colonise the land between the two rivers and even north of the Caledon, claiming that it had been abandoned by the Sotho people. Moshoeshoe subsequently signed a treaty with the British Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir George Thomas Napier, that annexed the Orange River Sovereignty where many Boers had settled. These outraged Boers were suppressed in a brief skirmish in 1848. In 1851, a British force was defeated by the Basotho army at Kolonyama, provoking an embarrassing war for the British. After repelling another British attack in 1852, Moshoeshoe sent an appeal to the British commander that settled the dispute diplomatically, and then defeated the Batlokoa in 1853. In 1854, the British pulled out of the region, and in 1858, Moshoeshoe fought a series of wars with the Boers in what is known as the Free State-Basotho War. As a result, Moshoeshoe lost a great portion of the western lowlands. The last war with the Boers ended in 1867 when Moshoeshoe appealed to Queen Victoria, who agreed to make Basutoland a British protectorate in 1868.

British rule (1869-1966)

In 1869, the British signed a treaty at Aliwal North with the Boers that defined the boundaries of Basutoland. This treaty effectively reduced Moshoeshoe’s kingdom to half its previous size by ceding away its western territories.

Following the cession in 1869, the British transferred functions from Moshoeshoe’s capital in Thaba Bosiu to a police camp on the northwest border, Maseru, until eventually the administration of Basutoland was transferred to the Cape Colony in 1871. Moshoeshoe died on 11 March 1870, marking the end of the traditional era and the beginning of the colonial era of Basutoland. He was buried at Thaba Bosiu.

In the Cape Colony period between 1871 and 1884, Basutoland was treated similarly to other territories that had been forcibly annexed, much to the humiliation of the Basotho, leading to the Basuto Gun War in 1880-1881.

In 1884, the territory became a Crown colony by the name of Basutoland, with Maseru as its capital. It remained under direct rule by a governor, though effective internal power was wielded by traditional tribal chiefs. In 1905, a railway line was built to connect Maseru to the railway network of South Africa.

Independence (1966-present)

Basutoland gained its independence from Britain and became the Kingdom of Lesotho in 1966.

In January 1970, the ruling Basotho National Party (BNP) lost the first post-independence general elections, with 23 seats to the Basotho Congress Party’s (BCP) 36. Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan refused to cede power to the BCP, instead declaring himself Tona Kholo (Sesotho: ‘prime minister’), and imprisoning the BCP leadership.

BCP began a rebellion and then received training in Libya for its Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) under the pretense of being Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) soldiers of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Deprived of arms and supplies by the Sibeko faction of the PAC in 1978, the 178-strong LLA was rescued from their Tanzanian base by the financial assistance of a Maoist PAC officer, but they launched the guerrilla war with only a handful of old weapons. The main force was defeated in northern Lesotho, and later guerrillas launched sporadic but usually ineffectual attacks. The campaign was severely compromised when BCP’s leader, Ntsu Mokhehle, went to Pretoria. In the early 1980s, several Basotho who sympathised with the exiled BCP were threatened with death and attacked by the government of Leabua Jonathan. On 4 September 1981, the family of Benjamin Masilo was attacked. In the attack his 3-year-old grandson died. Exactly four days later, Edgar Mahlomola Motuba, the editor of the popular newspaper Leselinyana la Lesotho, was abducted from his home together with two friends and murdered.

The BNP ruled from 1966 until January 1970. What later ensued was a de facto government led by Dr. Leabua Jonathan until 1986 when a military coup forced it out of office. The Transitional Military Council that came to power granted executive powers to King Moshoeshoe II, who was until then a ceremonial monarch. But in 1987 the King was forced into exile after coming up with a six-page memorandum on how he wanted the Lesotho’s constitution to be, which would have given him more executive powers than the military government had originally agreed to. His son was installed as King Letsie III in his place.

The chairman of the military junta, Major General Justin Metsing Lekhanya, was ousted in 1991 and replaced by Major General Elias Phisoana Ramaema, who handed over power to a democratically elected government of the BCP in 1993. Moshoeshoe II returned from exile in 1992 as an ordinary citizen. After the return to democratic government, King Letsie III tried unsuccessfully to persuade the BCP government to reinstate his father (Moshoeshoe II) as head of state.

In August 1994, Letsie III staged a military-backed coup that deposed the BCP government, after the BCP government refused to reinstate his father, Moshoeshoe II, according to Lesotho’s constitution. The new government did not receive full international recognition. Member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) engaged in negotiations to reinstate the BCP government. One of the conditions Letsie III put forward for this was that his father should be re-installed as head of state. After protracted negotiations, the BCP government was reinstated and Letsie III abdicated in favour of his father in 1995, but he ascended the throne again when Moshoeshoe II died at the age of fifty-seven in a supposed road accident, when his car plunged off a mountain road during the early hours of 15 January 1996. According to a government statement, Moshoeshoe had set out at 1 am to visit his cattle at Matsieng and was returning to Maseru through the Maluti Mountains when his car left the road.

In 1997, the ruling BCP split over leadership disputes. Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle formed a new party, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), and was followed by a majority of members of parliament, which enabled him to form a new government. Pakalitha Mosisili succeeded Mokhehle as party leader and the LCD won the general elections in 1998. Although the elections were pronounced free and fair by local and international observers and a subsequent special commission appointed by SADC, the opposition political parties rejected the results.

Opposition protests in the country intensified, culminating in a peaceful demonstration outside the royal palace in August 1998. Exact details of what followed are greatly disputed, both in Lesotho and South Africa. While the Botswana Defence Force troops were welcomed, tensions with South African National Defence Force troops were high, resulting in fighting. Incidences of sporadic rioting intensified when South African troops hoisted a South African flag over the Royal Palace. By the time the SADC forces withdrew in May 1999, much of the capital of Maseru lay in ruins, and the southern provincial capital towns of Mafeteng and Mohale’s Hoek had lost over a third of their commercial real estate. A significant number of South Africans and Basotho also died in the fighting.

An Interim Political Authority (IPA), charged with reviewing the electoral structure in the country, was created in December 1998. The IPA devised a proportional electoral system to ensure that the opposition would be represented in the National Assembly. The new system retained the existing 80 elected Assembly seats, but added 40 seats to be filled on a proportional basis. Elections were held under this new system in May 2002, and the LCD won again, gaining 54 percent of the vote. But for the first time, opposition political parties won significant numbers of seats, and despite some irregularities and threats of violence from Major General Lekhanya, Lesotho experienced its first peaceful election. Nine opposition parties now hold all 40 of the proportional seats, with the BNP having the largest share (21). The LCD has 79 of the 80 constituency-based seats. Although its elected members participate in the National Assembly, the BNP has launched several legal challenges to the elections, including a recount; none has been successful.

On 30 August 2014, an alleged abortive military “coup” took place, forcing then Prime Minister Thomas Thabane to flee to South Africa for three days. On May 19 2020, Thomas Thabane formally stepped down as prime minister of Lesotho following months of pressure after he was named as a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife.