Leaders of a Botswana Bushmen organisation left for the United States on Wednesday to obtain support for their fight against their government’s efforts to relocate them.
First People of the Kalahari will present their case to the human-rights caucus and the Africa sub-committee of the US Senate and the State Department. The organisation also hopes to address the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 27.
The trip is being facilitated by US journalist and author Rupert Isaacson.
The Botswana government is trying to persuade the Bushmen (Basarwa) to opt for relocation to settlements outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
The Basarwa’s legal action against the government, being heard by a specially convened High Court in the Kalahari desert, was in August postponed to November when funds ran out.
Roy Sesana, a leader of the organisation, said on Wednesday: ”We want help, we want the world to come to our assistance.
”We do not intend to tarnish Botswana’s image, but we want justice. We want to be allowed to live in the [game reserve] as much as each and every Motswana [citizen of Botswana] has a right to live where they please.
”If the government wants to develop us let them develop us in the [game reserve],” he said in a statement.
Another leader, Jumanta Gakelebone, said he wants to educate people in the US about the Basarwa.
”We are not primitive people clad in skins and making fire by rubbing two twigs together,” he said in the statement.
”If there are agendas about our land we want to know. We want to be part and parcel about issues that affect our welfare.
”If the government was so concerned about bringing the Basarwa into mainstream development why couldn’t it be in the [game reserve]? We want to be involved in eco-tourism projects to sustain ourselves.
”We have been harassed for too long. Our youth are roaming aimlessly, some of our people don’t have water. Our problems are endless.”
In what was widely seen as move to pressure them to relocate, the government stopped the delivery of water and social services to Basarwa inside the game reserve in January 2002, saying that at 50 000 pula a month, it was too expensive to continue the services.
The government argues that it wants the Basarwa out of the reserve so they can be brought into the mainstream of development.
The human-rights pressure group Survival International has said the reason for the relocation is to prevent the Basarwa from laying claim to any minerals discovered in the reserve. — Sapa