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Namibian San want Etosha land
25/01/2007 20:28 - (SA)
Windhoek - A San tribe has claimed land near Namibia's famed Etosha National Park, hoping to follow the success of Bushmen groups in neighbouring Botswana in regaining the rights to ancestral lands.
Known for their rock paintings and complicated "click" languages - sounds which in print are represented by symbols such as slashes, cross-hatches and exclamation points - the San have long complained that they were driven off their ancestral lands and robbed of their traditional way of life.
The San tribe of Hai//om formally said it would request permission from the Namibian government to relocate close to Etosha, a vast park of more than 22 000sqkm regarded as one of the best animal preserves in southern Africa.
"All tribes in Namibia have somewhere to go when they retire or get old," Hai//om headman Pedro //Gam#gaebeb told Thursday's Namibian newspaper. "For 100 years now, the Hai//om cannot call any place their home."
The 2 000 strong Hai//om are among a handful of surviving San or Bushmen tribes spread out across southern Africa, where their hunter gatherer ancestors were the first inhabitants about 20 000 years ago.
73 members of the tribe arrested
San groups and their supporters were elated last month when Botswana's top court said Bushmen groups must be allowed to return to lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a move the government had resisted.
Namibia's San groups have also repeatedly pressed for the right to return to Etosha and surrounding areas. A decade ago, a Hai//om protest outside the entrance to the game park saw 73 members of the tribe arrested.
Hai//om representatives said they planned to meet the government and commercial farmers from the region on January 29 to discuss their plight and how they might be resettled on farms in the area.
Humanitarian groups which have advised the Namibian San have cautioned that the move - apparently spurred by the Botswana court case - may be premature.
"We do not think it is in the best interest of the Hai//om people. This is not the right time for such claims, especially after 100 years," said Jerome Uiseb of the Working Group of Minorities in Southern Africa.
Main tourist attractions
The Hai//om have been sending out hints since last year about claiming land in or near Etosha, which was declared a national park and cleared of human inhabitants in 1907 by Namibia's then-colonial ruler Germany.
Etosha has since become one of Namibia's main tourist attractions, offering visitors views of giraffes, rhinos, lions and flocks of flamingos.
Officials at the office of deputy prime minister Libertina Amathila, which has been spearheading government projects to improve conditions for Namibia's San people, said they had not received any official correspondence from the San.
Namibia's government has in the past been cool to proposals to relocate people in Etosha.
"Other tribes can also claim Etosha as their ancestral land. Not only the San people. Others will come and say 'we lived on the peripheries of Etosha or we lived this side'. We all know the history," environment and tourism minister Willem Konjore said last year.
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