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King of Tiny Land Circled by South Africa Dies in Car Plunge

King of Tiny Land Circled by South Africa Dies in Car Plunge
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January 16, 1996, Section A, Page 4Buy Reprints
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King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho, a tiny nation surrounded by South Africa, died early today when his car plunged off a cliff, the Lesotho Government announced.

The accident, which also killed the King's chauffeur, took place as Moshoeshoe was returning to the capital, Maseru, through the Maluti Mountains after what the Government said was a late-night visit to his cattle herds in the royal village at Matsieng. Lesotho, a mountainous stronghold that kept its inhabitants largely safe from Zulu, British and Boer invasions over the years, has some of Africa's highest elevations and few safe roads. Among rural southern Africans, cattle are the prime measure of a man's wealth, so a Government statement that the King, who was 57, set out at 1 A.M. to visit his cattle prompted no particular surprise.

The American Ambassador, Bismarck Myrick, said no foul play was suspected and that the capital was calm. Power has changed hands abruptly in Lesotho several times since independence in 1966, in part under pressure from South Africa. King Moshoeshoe (pronounced moe-SHWAY-shway) was twice in exile, briefly in 1970 and for four years in London after he was deposed in 1989 while one of his sons ruled as King Letsie III at the pleasure of military leaders backed by South Africa's apartheid Government. Since his restoration in 1994, the King had been a constitutional monarch without political power in a country that has a national assembly and a Prime Minister.

The Oxford-educated, tennis-playing King was popular figure even during his exile. His restoration was part of a deal reached after a 1994 attempt by King Letsie to dismiss the elected Government of Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhele collapsed when South Africa's new President, Nelson Mandela, and the heads of other African nations threatened to send troops to restore democracy.

The King's wife, Queen Mamohato, will act as regent until the Traditional College of Chiefs, a tribal body, picks a successor. Crown Prince David Mohato, the King's older son, is expected to succeed his father, but the younger son, Seeiso, who ruled during their father's exile, is not necessarily out of the running, Ambassador Myrick said.

Prime Minister Mokhele declared the country in a state of mourning until the funeral.

King Moshoeshoe II was born in 1938 and succeeded his father as paramount chief of what was then the British protectorate of Basutoland in 1960. In 1966, when the country became independent as Lesotho (pronounced leh-SOO-TOO), he assumed the title of king.

The first Moshoeshoe was a village chief who, from 1820 until his death in 1870, managed to preserve his Sotho people from domination by stronger tribes, Boer settlers and British troops by playing them off against each other and welcoming refugees into his kingdom.

In that mold, Moshoeshoe II allowed Lesotho in the early 1980's to be used as a haven for refugees and guerrillas who opposed South Africa's apartheid Government. South Africa retaliated by closing the country's borders, strangling it until the military overthrew the Prime Minister in 1986. The King, who was not removed, appealed to the West to continue sanctions against South Africa, but asked for a Berlin-style airlift to aid his country. No significant aid, however, was forthcoming.

At the time he said that Lesotho hoped to eventually gain leverage over South Africa by selling its abundant mountain water to the perennially drought-stricken larger nation, but the apartheid system in South Africa crumbled before the Lesotho Highlands Water Project could be finished.

Lesotho has fewer than 2 million people and is one of the world's poorest countries. At any given time, about 40 percent of its men are outside the country working in South Africa's mines.

A correction was made on 
Jan. 19, 1996

An article on Tuesday about the death of King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho referred incorrectly to the son who ruled the tiny southern African country during the King's exile from 1989 to 1994. It was Moshoeshoe's older son, Crown Prince Letsie David Mohato -- not his younger son, Prince Simeone Seeiso -- who ruled briefly as Letsie III.

The article also misstated the site of the car crash in which the King died. It was near Marakabei, east of the capital, Maseru, not near Matsieng, south of the capital.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 4 of the National edition with the headline: King of Tiny Land Circled by South Africa Dies in Car Plunge. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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