Namibia has purchased two commercial farms near the Etosha National Park on behalf of a tribe of San who were evicted from their ancestral lands inside the famed game reserve 100 years ago, a minister said.
The government of the south-western African nation also plans to buy the Hai//om San tribe an additional four farms bordering Etosha, Namibian Environment and Tourism Minister Willem Konjore told reporters in the capital Windhoek on Thursday.
”This will lead to huge tourism potential for the Hai//om community,” said Konjore, who declined to say how much the government was spending on the purchases.
Etosha is Namibia’s premier tourist destination and the positions of the two farms could enable the tribe to cash in on overseas visitors.
The land grants come after more than a decade of protests by San tribesmen in Namibia, who were driven off their lands in 1907 by colonial ruler Germany to make way for the Etosha game park, which covers an area of 22 000 square kilometres.
An estimated 2 000 San live in Namibia, with most residing in communal settlements around the game park.
They are among a handful of surviving San or Bushmen tribes spread out across Southern Africa, where their hunter gatherer ancestors were the first inhabitants about 20 000 years ago.
Known for their rock paintings and complicated ”click” languages — sounds which in print are represented by symbols such as slashes, cross hatches and exclamation points — the San have long complained that they were driven off their ancestral lands and robbed of their traditional way of life.
”It is something we have waited for a long time,” Hai//om Chief David //Khamuxab told Reuters late on Thursday. The chief had lobbied the government to give the San at least two farms bordering Etosha.
San groups and their supporters were elated last year when Botswana’s top court said Bushmen groups must be allowed to return to lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a move the government had resisted. – Reuters