JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Johannesburg | Thursday
AN international conference of indigenous communities from five African countries has condemned alleged human rights abuses against the Kalahari Desert San people by the Botswana government.
Describing the San as Africa’s oldest inhabitants, the conference accused the Botswana government and its wildlife authorities of an alarming pattern of forced removals and land dispossession in the name of progress.
The forced removals, a statement said, had already removed 2500 nomadic hunter-gather San from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve for permanent resettlement in camps at New Xade and Kaudane.
“Between 400 and 450 San are resisting removal from their ancestral hunting grounds, and face an ongoing campaign of harassment by the authorities,” said conference representative and co-author of the book ‘Once We Were Hunters’, Tony Weaver.
Weaver alleges that Botswana’s Wildlife and National Parks’ Anti-poaching Unit tortured 13 San men and two women from Molapo village in August after accusing them of illegally hunting eland and giraffe.
He added that the Botswana government had made it clear it wanted all San removed from the game reserve as soon as possible.
Historical and archaeological evidence indicates the San have lived and hunted in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve for over 30 000 years.
Kalahari San community member and San rights activist Mosodi Xlaexlan Gakelekgolele added that the San had an undeniable birthright to the resources of the game reserve and had proven over centuries that they were managing those resources sustainably.
Gakelekgolele confirmed that the removals and abuses began in the late 1980s but said the last removal occurred in 1997 and that the remaining core of San had refused to be induced to relocate despite promises of financial reward. – African Eye News Service