Court case to determine rights of Bushmen

A historic court case on the legality of the forced resettlement of the San communities of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) will open in Botswana on Monday. It is the first case in Botswana to argue that the San, being the indigenous people, have a right to their ancestral land and culture. "Our cultural identity and traditional lifestyle cannot survive the removals from our land," Mothambo Ngakaeja, coordinator of the Botswana section of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) told IRIN. The government had argued that many residents of the CKGR were becoming settled agriculturists, raising crops and rearing livestock, which was incompatible with wildlife conservation. It stressed that resettlement in villages with schools and clinics would benefit the San, and it was uneconomic to provide those services in the reserve. The government does not recognise the San (or Bushmen) as the original inhabitants of the country, but archaeological evidence shows the San have lived in southern Africa for at least 30,000 years. As first peoples elsewhere, through the centuries they have suffered land dispossession, social exclusion and discrimination. In Botswana the term for San is Basarwa (those who don't raise cattle), an implied slur, and "dirty as a Bushman" is a common insult. But the San's belief system, oneness with the environment and indigenous knowledge have captivated many. Their healing trance dance and rock paintings are African cultural icons. Ironically, the logo of the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks is based on San art. REMOTE WILDERNESS In 1961, the British colonial regime set up the CKGR to protect the habitat, the wildlife and the lifestyle of its residents. They comprised the G/wi and the G//ana San and a few hundred Bakgalagadi Bantu people, who 400 years ago moved into what is now the reserve and mixed with the San. In 1966, the constitution of newly independent Botswana restricted entry and residence of non-Bushmen in the CKGR. This, say lawyers for the San, means the San have a right to live and hunt on their ancestral land. But in the late 1980s the government decided to resettle roughly 2,500 CKGR residents outside the reserve. "At no stage during the relocation exercise did government or its public officers involved in the relocation use force, coerce people residing in the game reserve or threaten anyone of them in any way. The emphasis has always been persuasion and voluntary relocation," a government statement stressed. However, the plan sparked local and international protest. The pressure group First People of the Kalahari (FPK), formed in the early 1990s, rallied residents to resist. A Negotiating Team comprising representatives of the residents, FPK, WIMSA, human rights group Ditshwanelo and the Botswana Council of Churches, was set up in 1996. After negotiations failed, the team brought the court case in April 2002. Larger than Denmark at 52,600 sq. km, the CKGR is one of Africa's most remote, unspoiled wilderness areas. Besides prides of lions and herds of antelopes, the CKGR has diamond deposits at Gope. The real reason behind the removals, alleges Survival International, a UK-based advocate for indigenous peoples, is to allow diamond mining by the government and De Beers, its 50-50 partner. De Beers says mining at Gope would be "subeconomic". Survival replies that "subeconomic merely means they don't want, or need, to mine it at present." But the government has stressed that the only license awarded in 2000 to an exploration company for Gope lasted for only three years, renewable for a total maximum of six years. "There has been no decision to proceed with any mining project anywhere in the CKGR, as the only known mineral discovery in the CKGR, the Gope deposit, has proven not commercially viable to develop into a mine," the government statement said. REMOVALS AND RESETTLEMENT In 1997, 1,740 people moved out of CKGR into the settlements of New Xade and Kaudwane. "By carrot or stick or monkey tricks," commented Ngakaeja. Another 530 left in early 2002, when the government cut off water, food, health and social services to the reserve. Some 200 people have stayed in remote areas, eight or 10 hours on foot from the nearest park entrance. Among them is Keletso Ketalelago. She took a look at New Xade ("place of death", the San call it) and headed back home. Her village of 300 people, Molapo, had been razed by park officials, but Ketalelago and some 50 others rebuilt a handful of branch-and-thatch huts. The day IRIN talked to her, Ketalelago, in her mid-30s, had collected wild berries and firewood, then repaired her hut. At night, the group gathered around a fire for story telling in their musical click language. "I know what to do here, but I don't know how to live in New Xade and I don't like it there," she said. "This is our land. Our forefathers were here. I am not moving." Cut off from their traditional lifestyle, those San who have moved to New Xade and other settlements have joined Botswana's underclass of rural poor, dependent on government handouts. Alcoholism, prostitution, begging, low self-esteem, TB and AIDS have set in. The CKGR communities are the last to fully live the special San connection with the environment. COURT CASE The government's stated intention with its removals policy has been to "bring the standards of living of Basarwa up to the level obtaining in the rest of the country, as well as to avoid land use conflicts in the CKGR, i.e. allowing permanent settlement, growing of crops and rearing of livestock inside the reserve, which is not compatible with preserving wildlife resources". The court case on Monday is to examine: whether it was unlawful for the government to end essential services to the residents in January 2002; whether the government has an obligation to restore these services; whether the residents were in possession of their land and were deprived of it forcibly; and whether the government's refusal to issue game licenses to the residents and allow them to enter the CKGR is unconstitutional. To get a court date took two years and many problems. One was for the three judges requested by government to agree on a date. Hearing the case in inhospitable and remote New Xade, which lacks accommodation and facilities, instead of the district capital of Ghantsi, makes it hard for lawyers, witnesses and the media to attend. The case has implications beyond Botswana. If the San are not recognised as Southern Africa's indigenous inhabitants and accorded the same rights under international law as Australian aborigines and Native Americans, it could lead to similar denial of rights for other African first peoples. "The future of the two San tribes of the CKGR hangs in the balance, but the case is pivotal for the pygmy peoples of West and Central Africa and the hunting people of East Africa," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International. Neigbouring South Africa restored land rights and benefits to the =Khomani San in the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in 1999. In 2003, in a case involving a diamond company and 3,000 Nama people in the Richtersveld in Northern Cape province, South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled that indigenous people have land and mineral rights over their territory. The San case has become infused with emotions. Survival International's strident campaign has annoyed the government and hardened its position. By portraying the anti-removal campaign as meddling by foreign NGOs and the former colonial power in a sovereign state's internal affairs, it rallied domestic support under the flag of patriotism. WIMSA's Ngakaeja is sceptical over the impartiality of the court. "To use only Batswana judges is tantamount to a denial of fair trial, because it is unlikely they will rule against their Tswana government in favour of Bushmen," he alleged. For more details see: BOTSWANA: Culture under threat(I) BOTSWANA: Culture under threat(II)