ancestral land
Caitlin Davies in Maun
A NEW initiative by the Botswana government to remove Bushmen from their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve – to make way for tourism and mining – has backfired, with hundreds of Bushmen agreeing to accept cash in return for moving, but then changing their minds.
“People think they are being given big money, it is said it will be enough for one person to buy two new cars. This is not true,” says a disgusted Aaron Johannes, a member of Kgeikani Kweni, The First People of the Kalahari.
Johannes says one family of 13 has already moved out of Mothomelo, one of seven villages in the reserve which is home to about 3 000 people according to Bushmen – although official figures estimate the population is 1 300.
Hundreds of people signed up for the scheme initially, but apparently now have changed their minds.
The reserve was set up in 1961 for “wild Bushmen”, but villagers say the Botswana government now wants to turn the place into a big safari camp and develop mining in the area.
“The government has sent young people to take down the names of those who want to move,” explains Johannes. “We will help and support those who want to stay. Now we are always in the game reserve because sometimes if we are not, people are told bad things. They are told the army will shoot them if they don’t move. Now people are afraid.”
Botswana’s government has always maintained that no one is being forced to relocate. But last February, when new resettlement plans were announced, villagers were told that if they didn’t move out, they would no longer receive social services and that the Xade school and clinic would not be upgraded.
In the words of one official, “infrastructure in the game reserve will be left … but there won’t be any more because the population will be going down”. To many observers this was just another form of removal.
According to a government statement last February, the majority of people in the reserve were “in favour of resettling outside”. But testimonies from five people who attended a series of public meetings tell another story.
“What worries me is this: I, myself, cannot be removed from my ancestral homes with my people,” said Roy Sesana.
“Government wants us to remain detribalised in order for us to come and work for others and live lives of poverty and suffering. Calling back my culture, a lion was a friend of mine. Why today is a lion to be given more development and I not given the same?”
Villagers have long maintained that the government is merely bribing them to go, and in some cases harassing them in order to drive them away. They claim in the past 10 years numerous Bushmen have been arrested for hunting violations, and have been jailed, beaten and tortured for being “poachers”. Such allegations have also been reported by Amnesty International.
It was the pioneering work of the late John Hardbattle which really brought world attention to the fate of the people within the reserve. Hardbattle, who was the director of Kgeikani Kweni, worked tirelessly canvassing for international support for the Kalahari Bushmen.
Sponsored by the First Nations Development Institute in the United States, in 1995 he travelled to Washington and New York where he was christened “The Bushman’s advocate”.
In March 1996 he flew to Geneva where, in two five-minute sessions before the United Nations High Commission on Racism, Hardbattle told the world that people would be removed from the reserve by cattle trucks in May. Before he had finished speaking, 60 copies of his presentation had been snapped up. Shortly afterwards the British House of Lords entered the fray and demanded that the removal be formally protested.
The Botswana government was not amused by the uproar, and Hardbattle was accused in Botswana’s Parliament of acting in a “clandestine manner”. He died last November.
Attempts to obtain comments from government officials this week on the cash offers were unsuccessful. – Okavango Observer