6 Bushmen held for hunting

2007-09-03 13:53

Cape Town - Botswana police have arrested six Bushmen for hunting on their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, says the organisation Survival International.

This was despite a ruling by the country's high court last year that Bushmen had the right to live in the reserve, and the Botswana government was obliged to issue them with hunting permits, it said in a statement.

Survival International was a London-based organisation that campaigned for the rights of tribal people around the world.

It said following the discovery of diamonds in the area in the 1980s, a wave of evictions by the Botswana government had forced the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their lands in the Kalahari reserve.

In 2006, the Bushmen won an historic legal victory after Botswana's High Court ruled that their eviction was "unlawful and unconstitutional".

The latest arrests followed 21 arrests for hunting in the reserve in June and July this year.

Survival International said: "Since the judgment, the government has continued to insist that the Gana and Gwi do not have the right to hunt within 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."

- SAPA