|
Monday,
18 March, 2002, 18:28 GMT
Botswana
Bushmen's last stand
The Kalahari desert is
the ancestral home of the San
By
the BBC's Carolyn Dempster
Away from the prying eyes of the
world, the last remaining Kalahari Bushmen, or San people of Botswana, are
being starved of food and water in a bid to force them off the land their
forefathers have roamed for the past 30,000 years.
This is the final chapter in a
17-year saga which has seen the relocation of some 2,200 San out of the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) into resettlement camps by the Botswana
Government.
| Water tanks have been removed
from the six settlements of Kalahari San that remain inside the 52000
kmē reserve - about the size of Togo or Denmark. The water pump at the
Mothomelo borehole has been dismantled.
The special game permits which enabled
the San, the last remaining hunter-gatherers in Africa, to hunt a
limited quota of wild animals, and gather veldt foods and fruits have
been withdrawn. |
|
Now fewer than 30 of the Kalahari
San remain.
Underground wealth
The government says the
resettlement programme is for the benefit the San.
Most of Botswana's 50,000 San
population has already been relocated into 63 resettlement villages, where
water, health and education services are provided.
| "We are a little puzzled
about the fact that the world is so alarmed," says Major General
Moeng Pheto, a retired army officer overseeing the relocation programme.
"We are doing what we consider to be
the best for our people."
"We want to empower the Basarwa and
make sure they have a future in this country," General Pheto adds,
"because they cannot forever remain nomadic." |
The government took the water
tank away
|
But critics have compared the
resettlement villages to reservations established in North America.
The Botswana Government has also
been accused of putting wildlife before people, and securing its mineral
interests.
The central Kalahari is rich in
diamond and other mineral deposits. A successful land claim by the San might
make it more difficult for the government to exploit any mineral finds,
although the state owns all mineral deposits in Botswana.
Legal moves
Next week several hundred former
central Kalahari San residents will take the government to court to challenge
the removals, and demand they be allowed to return.
| Roy Sesana is the first
applicant in the case and a founder member of the First People of the
Kalahari, a non-government organization established in 1993 to represent
the residents of the CKGR.
Speaking through an interpreter in his
native seG//ana language he explained: "When I went to Molapo I
found my wives and children dismantling the huts to go."
"They had been told by the officials
that if they stayed behind, the soldiers would come and put them inside
the huts and burn them. They had no choice." |
Gabaila and her belongings have been
taken away
|
"The government is forcing
people to move. We are being treated like refugees," Mr Sesana says.
Under pressure
It is a long hot drive to the
semi-desert scrubland of the game reserve.
When we got to the in the
settlement of Kukamma, government cattle trucks were already parked waiting to
load up the meagre possessions of a handful of San and BaKgalagadi families.
| The remaining residents were
clearly under enormous pressure to pack up and go.
While officials from the local Ghanzi and
Kweneng districts busily directed the dismantling of the huts, we sat
sharing a watermelon with the chief's family. |
" I thought
that the government would be helping us, but the government is killing
us "
Tshekelo Mogolarijo, 65
|
Every member of the family
received a slice of the sweet delicacy. Not one pip was squandered, but
carefully collected in a small calabash for future cultivation.
The moment was abruptly terminated
with the arrival of Department of Wildlife officials who demanded our permit
and then ordered us to leave immediately.
Danqoo Xhukuri, chairman of the
First People, says he believes it is because the government "doesn't want
anyone present to witness the final forced removal of the last of the
San."
Promises
General Pheto denies that the CKGR
residents are being forced to relocate.
| "The only force and
intimidation that we know of," he says, is exerted on the San
"by the NGOs who have been intimidating those who want to relocate."
He also says the San of the central
Kalahari have been consulted for a long time about the move.
They have been encouraged by the
government to move out of the reserve, with generous offers of money,
goats, cattle, and promises of jobs and a better quality of life. |
Hundreds of San children have been
resettled
|
But many of the San who have
already relocated to the villages of New Xade and Kaudwane say they were
bribed and coerced into moving.
They tell a tale of an
impoverished existence, depending on government food rations for survival.
No hope
Phutego Banweng, 40, believed the
government's promises of a better life, and relocated willingly to Kaudwane in
1997.
He says he did not get any
compensation, and when he found that the promises of jobs and development were
empty, he returned to the San settlement at Mothomelo. But he was moved out of
the reserve a second time.
| Life in the re-settlement camp
of New Xade is just as bleak. Alcoholism is rife, and an aura of despair
and listlessness hangs over the dusty dwellings.
There are no jobs, there is no grazing
for the goats and cattle, no veldt food to gather, no wild animals to
hunt.
The residents have nothing to do. They
are 70km from the nearest town, an expensive and difficult 3-hour
journey away. |
Sesana is challenging the government
in the courts
|
Tshekelo Mogolarijo, 65, was
resettled here 5 years ago. "We thought that the government would help
us," he says. "But I think that the government is killing us."
SOURCE
|