Gaborone

Botswana’s government on Thursday grudgingly accepted a High Court order to allow the country’s last hunter-gatherers to live in their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, but attached tough conditions likely to frustrate the return. The court on Wednesday said the Basarwa were wrongly forced off the land.

A Botswana court will decide this week whether hundreds of San Bushmen can return to their ancestral land in a dispute activists say pits Africa’s last hunter-gatherers against the world’s hunger for diamonds. The Bushmen say Botswana illegally forced them off hunting grounds in the Kalahari Desert to make way for diamond mining.

About 150 members of the main opposition Botswana National Front held a protest march on Saturday against government moves to relocate Bushmen from their land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Botswana’s high court is expected to rule on December 13 on a legal challenge by the Bushmen against their eviction.

Botswana’s longest-running court case, in which its San Bushmen are fighting for rights to ancestral land, will hear final submissions next month as the trial nears completion, lawyers said on Tuesday. State lawyer Dittah Molodi said that ”final oral submissions before the court are expected to start on August 28”.

Botswana has shown that developing countries can successfully distribute anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in their public health-care systems, the country’s Department of Health said on Wednesday. The country has also exceeded its patient enrolment targets in the ARV programme, Health Minister Sheila Tlou said.

Twenty-six Bushmen appeared before a Botswana court on Wednesday for allegedly staging ”violent protests” over their relocation from ancestral land in the Kalahari, but the case was postponed until next month. Duma Boko, the Bushmen’s lawyer, said the 26 Bushmen were told to return to court at the end of November.

The international community has been called upon to assist the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in its peace-building initiatives, the office of Botswana President Festus Mogae said on Monday. The call was made by the Botswana/Zimbabwe Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security, Mogae said in a statement.

Botswana’s police commissioner said on Tuesday that officers had fired rubber bullets to disperse a group of about 35 Bushmen protesting their eviction from ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Basarwa tribesmen had been trying to break through blockades and enter the reserve on Saturday, police commissioner Edwin Batshu said.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has turned down an offer from former Mozambican leader Joaquim Chissano to mediate between the Zimbabwe government and the opposition, the former president said on Wednesday. ”President Mugabe said clearly there is no need [for] such talks,” Chissano told reporters.

The 13-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) is facing mounting international pressure to act against Zimbabwe, where the destruction of townships and markets has left an estimated 700 000 people without homes, livelihoods or both, according to a United Nations assessment.

A dinner party at the home of the South African deputy high commissioner to Botswana was ruined when guests were seriously assaulted in a robbery in Gaborone on Thursday. ”They [the dinner guests] were very badly assaulted and burnt with an iron,” said High Commissioner Eunice Komane.

Botswana has started providing anti-retroviral drugs to soldiers in an effort to mitigate the impact of HIV/Aids on its armed forces. The programme, described as "a key watershed in safeguarding the security of the nation", is expected to target an estimated 5 000 infected soldiers and their dependents.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa on Tuesday began a three-day state visit to Botswana to develop trade and economic cooperation between the Southern African neighbours. Botswana’s ambassador to Zambia, Zibani Nthakhwane, said the main focus of the visit will be trade and developing the first road link between the two neighbours.

A dozen HIV-positive women donned flowing evening gowns and glittering jewellery in Gaborone, Botswana, on Saturday to compete in a beauty pageant aimed at fighting the stigma that still surrounds the deadly virus in this Aids-ravaged Southern African country. Botswana has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection.

Botswana’s fight against HIV/Aids will be funded at least until 2009, the Merck Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have pledged. In 2001, each gave -million to be spent over five years, and although there is no actual cut-off date, there are fears that funds will dry up in 2006.

South African Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka wants diamond producers to retain a sizeable proportion of rough diamonds in the countries in which they were mined. She was echoing remarks by the Botswana government where Debswana has been pressured to promote job creation in secondary industries.

Festus Gontebanye Mogae was inaugurated on Tuesday for his final term as President of Botswana. He promised his government will remain committed to globalisation and regionalisation, and that economic policies are unlikely to change, but there will be improved implementation of government policies and projects.

President Festus Mogae’s party scored a landslide electoral victory in Botswana, winning a new mandate in the Southern African country that it has ruled since independence in 1966, results showed on Monday. Mogae’s Botswana Democratic Party won 44 of the 57 seats in Parliament.

Election officials in Botswana were counting ballots on Sunday following nationwide polls that were expected to see the party in power since independence remain at the helm of the Southern African country. President Festus Mogae’s Botswana Democratic Party is set to win a comfortable majority of the 57 seats in Parliament.

With the gaze of the international community fixed on next week’s presidential election in the United States, little attention has been paid to the fact that Botswana is also scheduled to go to the polls this weekend. The fact that the ruling Botswana Democratic Party is widely expected to win has contributed to the low-key coverage.

Batswana will vote on Saturday in the eighth general election since their country ceased to be a British protectorate in 1966. Opposition parties are fighting not to win — they have conceded that is not possible — but to unify a fragmented opposition that they hope will strengthen over the life of the next Parliament.

A major hospital in Botswana is struggling to cope with the mounting pressure of staff and resource shortages, the HIV/Aids crisis and a high rate of road accidents. ”Sometimes we have 200% bed occupancy in the wards,” said Dr Howard Moffat, the hospital’s superintendent. The shortage of beds has resulted in patients sleeping on the floor.

Wage negotiations between workers at Botswana’s four diamond mines and mining company Debswana were settled on Monday on its terms, the company said at a press conference. Debswana did not agree to reinstate workers who had been fired for striking illegally at the beginning of a two week work stoppage.