Letsholo
THE Botswana government has dismissed as “lies” reports from Bushmen in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve that they are being pressured to leave their ancestral lands with verbal promises of hard cash.
The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Elridge Mhlauli, said this week that he was still in the process of answering written questions on the allegations. In the meantime he would only say: “These people, what they are saying deep down they know it is not the truth. It’s a similar thing to when they went all over America and Europe.”
But villagers insist that government officers are playing one settlement in the reserve off against another in an effort to get people to leave.
“I finally signed for removal against my will. I was told I was the only one who hadn’t signed,” said one villager at a workshop held in Xade in December. “According to our culture, when you move someone you are moving for your funeral … it is as if you are being moved to your graveyard,” said another.
Other speakers said they had been made to move from Ghanzi to West Hanahai in the late 1970s with promises of a better life that, instead, turned into poverty, alcoholism and hunger.
“I am living proof of what happens when you move,” said one man who pleaded with villagers to stay inside the reserve which was set up in 1961 for “wild Bushmen”.
In Xade, the largest village, only seven people have agreed to move out and they are reportedly now being used to convince the others.
According to the Kgeikani Kweni, The First People of the Kalahari, at the December workshop, 90% of the villagers said they didn’t want to move and five Xade families, who had earlier signed up to relocate, then changed their minds. They say even a recent government report agrees that 68% of the people don’t want to go.
“Through the grapevine we hear that people are being promised enough money to buy two cars and still be able to build a house with the rest,” says Roy Sesana who last year attended the United Nations High Commission on Racism, where the late John Hardbattle announced that people were to be forcibly removed.
Though the removal didn’t take place, members of the First People say the situation is tearing people apart psychologically and that the cash offers are not being made through the proper channels, for example through the Chief or village development committees.
In addition, people are being offered different amounts, some saying they have been promised houses, others several thousand pula in cash.
Despite this, the overwhelming majority say they have no intention of going. While 13 people have left Mothomelo and one family has moved out of Kikau, The First People say no one has signed up in Metsiamanong, Gope or Gugama. – Okavango Observer