San nabbed for hunting

2007-07-16 17:56

Gaborone - Twenty-one Gana and Gwi Bushmen have been arrested for hunting in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, a non-governmental body said on Monday.

Survival International, an organisation fighting for tribal rights, contended that the arrests contravened a Botswana high court ruling in December last year.

Spokesperson Jonathan Mazower said the court found the Bushmen had the right to live in the reserve, which they consider part of their ancestral land.

The court concluded the Botswana government acted illegally in 2002 when it refused to issue the Bushmen hunting permits for the reserve.

Mazower said the Botswana government had, since the judgment, continued to act against Gana and Gwi who hunted in the reserve.

"It has also refused to let the Bushmen use the water borehole on their land or to bring their few goats back into the game reserve."

The 21 men had been arrested in the past two months.

- SAPA