Bushmen fear for their future

2007-01-16 08:51

Kaudwane - The Bushmen of Botswana fear for their future, whether they return to ancestral lands in a national park or stay on the desolate reserves, where they were forced to move.

Basarwa tribesmen, also known as Bushmen, won a court order in December allowing them to return to land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve from which the government had expelled them.

Government officials, though, said the tribesmen can't take along domestic animals or other items that had became necessities for these descendants of hunter-gatherers.

Keratwaemang Kekailwe, one of the 189 Basarwa who filed suit, said: "They also said they would determine amounts of water we take in."

In September 2005, he and 22 other Basarwa were prevented from re-entering the reserve by Botswana police firing rubber bullets. Now he lived in an isolated resettlement camp known as Kaudwane.

Longest running legal battle

Last week, President Festus Mogae asked the Basarwa to stay where they are until Thursday, when he would speaks to them in New Xade, another of the camps, about the way forward after the judgment.

Presidential spokesperson Jeff Ramsay said: "He will also listen to what people have to say."

Backed by the British based group, Survival International, the Basarwa fought the longest running legal battle in Botswana's postcolonial history to return to the reserve.

The verdict by Botswana High Court that the government's eviction of the Bushmen was "unlawful and unconstitutional" was hailed as a victory for indigenous peoples around the world.

The court also ruled that the Bushmen had the right to hunt and gather in the reserve, and should not have to apply for permits to enter.

The government had said that only the 189 people who filed the lawsuit would be given automatic right of return with their children - short of the 2 000 the Basarwa said wanted to go home.

Govt shuts main well

Along with the restrictions on domestic animals and water, they would also not be allowed to build permanent structures. Hunters would have to apply for special permits.

The government shut the main well in 2002 and water resources were scarce.

It's as if the United States Supreme Court had ruled that Hopi tribespeople could make their homes in the Grand Canyon, and the US government said any that took the opportunity would have to live there as their ancestors had a millennium ago.

The Botswana government argued that it must protect the reserve as a national tourism resource.

But Joram Useb, from the organisation Working Group for Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa, said the Bushmen should be allowed to take their domestic animals in and there were similar projects in Kenya and Tanzania involving indigenous people that could be studied and applied to Botswana.

He said: "A buffer zone could be established so the domestic animals don't mix with the wild ones."

- AP