The Hollywood star Rick Yune was among the dignitaries at the 6th elected president of Botswana president Advocate Duma Boko’s inauguration on Friday morning at the National Stadium with over 20 000 people in attendance in Gaborone.
Known for his roles in Fast and Furious, movies Snow Falling on Cedars, the James Bondmovie Die Another Day, and Olympus Has Fallen. He was part of the main cast of the Netflix original series Marco Polo.
Yuni became a known personal friend to President Duma Gideon Boko in 2009 when the latter was a practicing human rights lawyer in a brawl with government over providing clean water to Batswana in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).
“When I first came here I was here to support a lawyer friend who was fighting for the people of the Kalahari to get clean water. He is a promise of the future,the future is here. I knew him before he thought of being President, I know that he loves his country. That to me is a sign of greatness”, said Yuni on the sidelines at the National Stadium.
Quizzed how he predicts president Boko, Yune said his friend is a forgiving person thus he forsee a harmonious relationship with the outgoing administration. He was however full of praises that the people of Botswana have tremendously done well to bring a good leader to the highest office in the country.
Nevertheless, Yuni had not been able to visit his friend in Botswana as the then government allegedly claimed that the Hollywood star was funding Boko’s human rights activism and placed him under restriction to enter Botswana.
However with power invested on the president, Advocate Boko scrapped off the restrictions on the eve of inauguration to allow his arsenal of friends to attend the most important day of his life.
After inauguration proceedings when the president Boko went up the stands to greet all the dignitaries in the VIP section, the elated Yune was seen chanting “that’s my boy” several times with his fist up, indicate freedom, a phrase president Boko used in his inauguration speech narrating how it takes a village and a community to raise a leader who shall forever remain a servant or a boy to his village or community.
With Yuni influence, it remains to be seen what plans he could be having to accelerate the creative sector locally, which has degraded over years due to less recognition and limited resources to monetize.
In the last administration, former president Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi met with another Hollywood veteran Steve Harvey at a diamond related conference and made inroads to advancing the creative sector although not effectively operational in the last for years.
It is expected the Harvey’S Family Feud Botswana will air in few months despite the production done outside Botswana.
