Bushmen aren't forever
Botswana:
diamonds in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the eviction of Bushmen
Survival International
November 11 2002
Preamble
• Thousands of Gana and Gwi `Bushmen', and Bakgalagadi, have been
forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari
Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana. This is a gross violation of their
human rights and is against international law. Unless they get their
lands back, these Bushman tribes are unlikely to survive as peoples.
• Diamond mining in Botswana is controlled by a company called
Debswana (ie. De Beers Botswana), which is owned on a 50/50 basis by
the government and by De Beers. Half of the directors of Debswana are
from the Botswana elite, many are senior figures in government.
Diamond industry sources call this `interdependence' and a `mutual
beneficially `relationship model'.' More simply, the president of
Botswana has said, `The partnership between De Beers and Botswana has
been likened to a marriage. I sometimes wonder whether a better
analogy might not be that of Siamese twins.'
• The company has found diamonds at a Bushman community called Gope
(pronounced hop-ey), where it has test drilled and mounted a rig and
basic installation. It has also test drilled and found diamonds near
other Bushman communities. There is, however, no mining at present in
the CKGR.
• De Beers is no longer a public company and operates with great
secrecy: it is likely that only a handful of senior people know what
the diamond (and precious metal) mining potential of the CKGR really
is. Accurate information about this is not likely to be given to
anyone else, either inside or outside Botswana. As the Financial
Times says, 'Anonymity is paramount in the diamond trade. The
industry is secretive to the point of paranoia … Contracts and
written codes are virtually unheard of.'
• Both De Beers and the government deny that diamond mining is
connected to the Bushman evictions. The government wrongly claims
that the relocations are voluntary and gives several quite different
reasons for them: these can be shown to be false.
• De Beers keeps the price of gem diamonds high by severely
restricting supply. De Beers's intention, therefore, might be not to
mine in the CKGR for years, even decades, until other mines are
exhausted. (ie. Keeping the find in the ground, out of reach of other
companies, might be eventually just as profitable for both the
company and the government as actually extracting the diamonds would
be. Indeed, at times, as much as 20% of Botswana's diamonds have been
stockpiled to restrict supply, so it makes economic sense not to mine
the CKGR diamonds yet. Keeping them in the ground is cheaper, and
safer, than stockpiling in vaults. This could easily explain why De
Beers asserts it is `sub-economic' to mine at present.) Botswana's
three main diamond mines, Orapa, Jwaneng and Letlhakane have turned
the country into the world's foremost producer of the gems; all will
inevitably become exhausted in the future.
Sequence of events
• Exploration for diamonds at Gope started in 1981.
• The Minister of Commerce & Industry announced the decision to
relocate the Bushmen on 12 October 1986, but no action was taken.
• A formal evaluation of the mine was completed in 1996.
• Apparently coincidentally, the first enforced evictions started in
May the following year. One Bushman community, Xade, inside the CKGR,
which was already equipped with a school, clinic, and borehole for
water, was completely removed.
• Also apparently coincidentally, in 1997 less than two months after
the eviction of Xade, the mining company Anglo American (which owns
part of De Beers) sub-contracted the company, Nepcal, `to ferry
mining and drilling equipment to Xade and other destinations' in the
CKGR. When asked about this, Anglo American, `denied any knowledge of
its activities within the reserve.'
• In 1999, mineral exploration camps were set up within a few miles
of Molapo, a major Bushman community within the CKGR.
• In 2002, further enforced evictions occurred, with more Bushman
communities, including Molapo, removed in their entirety. Government
officials destroyed another water borehole in a Bushman community,
forbade all hunting and gathering, and emptied all the Bushmen's
stocks of water.
• The entire CKGR is being explored for both diamonds and precious
metals, with the prospect `of further encroachment' into the CKGR by
mining activities said to be `highly likely'.
Description of the find
• The CKGR lies in the middle of the world's richest gem diamond
fields.
• The Gope find was originally described by industry sources as being
very significant. For example, Barry Bailey, in charge of prospecting
for De Beers, called it `moderately large' in 1997, and Matthew
Hart, editor of a diamond trade journal, described it as `the best
new target in the Kalahari'.
• As well as Gope, there are other known finds on Bushman lands. For
example, there are `substantial' deposits in the Kukama (also spelt
Gugama) area where test drilling has been carried out.
• De Beers has already spent tens of millions of dollars studying the
Gope site; one industry source says it has spent US$80 million
(including contracting an anthropologist, James Suzman, to study
Bushman communities in the CKGR).
• Early in 2002 De Beers said it had no plans to mine `for the
foreseeable future'; more recently it has said the find is `sub-
economic' (sic).
• De Beers has not said that it never intends to open a mine at Gope.
It still pays for a retention licence. These licences were first
brought in with a new mining law in 1999; their purpose is `to
accommodate explorers who on making a discovery may find it cannot
immediately be mined economically' (our emphasis).
• Therefore, it would seem that the company does indeed have the
intention to mine at the Gope site, and perhaps at other locations as
well.
Those who think diamonds are not the cause
• Both the government and De Beers have denied the removals are to do
with diamonds.
• In 2002, the Botswana human rights organisation, Ditshwanelo, said
it could `find no evidence' that diamonds were behind the evictions.
(But this organisation's judgment may be open to question. For
example, in 1996, less than 12 months before the total eviction of
the Bushman community of Xade, Ditshwanelo declared that reports of a
planned `mass forced removal were overstated.')
Those who think diamonds are the cause
• Over the many years which Survival has been studying this situation
at first-hand, many Bushmen have suggested that diamonds are at the
root of the efforts to evict them from their land.
• In 1997, South African lawyers, who did not want to be named in
case they were prevented from entering the country said, `that the
forced removals by the Botswana authorities were being handled in
such a way as to ensure the Bushmen had no claims to the reserve's
mineral wealth.' They went on, `the manner in which De Beers and
Anglo American are operating suggests that they are colluding with
the government to get rid of the people.'
• A human rights lawyer who `ask[ed] not to be named' and who handled
land disputes for the Bushmen was quoted, in 1998, saying he
is `convinced the potential for diamond mining' is the reason why the
Botswana government has been so intractable on the removals.
• In 1999, the Botswana newspaper, Mmegi Business Week,
reported, `some political observers believe there is a connection
between the 1997 relocation of hundreds of Basarwa [ie. Bushmen] from
the reserve and the recent upsurge in mining activity. Critics allege
that the Basarwa were moved out to stop them from laying claim to the
diamonds.'
• In 2000, the director of the Hotel & Tourism Association of
Botswana, Modisagape Mothogae, stated `that the Basarwa are being
moved out of the CKGR to make way for diamond mining.'
• In February 2002, the newspaper Mmegi reported, `These arguments
[that the relocations are to help develop the Bushmen] are very weak
as it is now clear to all that government intentions on this matter
are not humanitarian. Instead, they border on secrecy and hypocrisy.
The real intention behind this forcible removal is now an open
secret: the CKGR is a rich area endowed with natural resources,
wildlife and diamonds.'
• The South African magazine, Noseweek, published a lengthy article
on the situation in May 2002. Whilst it left open the question of
whether the removals are the result of the diamond finds, it
nevertheless concluded, `If the Bushmen are not returned to their
land, De Beers diamonds, having once been smeared with the blood of
the severed limbs of Sierra Leonean children, now risk being tainted
with the stench of the death of one of the earth's oldest cultures.'
• During 2002 a large number of journalists, from several countries,
reported on the situation following visits to the area. Some
concluded that diamonds were the cause of the evictions. John
Simpson, the BBC's most senior reporter for world news, wrote, `[The
president of Botswana] is forcing them off the land that the British
colonial authorities ceded to the Bushmen forever. Diamonds, the
curse of modern Africa, were discovered under their hunting grounds
and, to President Mogae, they are worth a great deal more than the
human treasures of a culture lasting 10 millennia or more.'
• In July 2002, Bushmen informed Survival that the District
Commissioner had told them that they were being moved because, `If
diamonds are found somewhere, the people have to be chased away.'
• On 9 October 2002, the youth arm of the country's principal
opposition political party, the Botswana National Front Youth League
said, `The real reason why Basarwa are forcefully removed from their
ancestral lands is to pave the way for Debswana to mine Diamonds in
the area for that matter without even giving Basarwa, the owners of
the lands any royalties.'
Government statements
• In 1997, the Botswana press reported the government saying that
it `needs to protect mineral deposits in the reserve,' (but denying
anyone was forced to leave).
• In August 2000, the Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Affairs,
Boometswe Mokgothu, told the Ghanzi District Council that plans were
at an advanced stage to open a diamond mine at Gope. In February
2002, he said that companies were prospecting in the CKGR and that it
may become necessary to establish `permanent structures' there.
• In February 2002, when questioned about the evictions, the Minister
for Local Government said that this was not the first relocation
exercise. She cited, as an example, that people had been relocated in
Jwaneng `to give way to projects of national interest.' Jwaneng is a
diamond mine.
Survival International meeting
• In February 2001, Survival representatives met with the group
secretary of Debswana, Sheila Khama, and the government's director of
mines, Ribson Gabonowe, in order to talk about the treatment of the
Bushmen in the CKGR. During this meeting, the director of mines
repeatedly questioned Survival about indigenous peoples' mineral
rights in other countries – a pointless line of questioning if there
were no plans to mine on Bushman land in the CKGR.
De Beers's reaction to the campaign
• De Beers has not provided recent concession maps to journalists or
to Survival International, despite having been asked to do so: it did
however provide such maps in past years.
• Many of the arguments presented by De Beers, for example that there
were no Bushmen at the site until exploration started, that no one
would need to be moved, that the mine would provide significant
employment for local people etc., are flatly contradicted by the
studies that the company itself has commissioned.
• The chairman of De Beers visited Gope in 2002 – a pointless trip if
the find was not worth mining.
• The company still insists, wrongly, that there were no Bushmen at
Gope originally, so does the government – a pointless claim if
Gope is not going to be mined.
• After Survival had spent more than two years asking De Beers for
its policy on indigenous peoples, the company finally responded by
saying that `indigenous rights ideology is indeed based on the same
discredited social theorising that justified apartheid.' De Beers
therefore equates promoting the rights of indigenous peoples with the
denial of rights for South Africans of African and Asian descent.
(One of the four anthropologists cited by De Beers to support this
controversial idea, Professor Ingold, told Survival, `I do not
recognise as my own the views attributed to me in the De Beers
statement.') Just two days after De Beers made this extraordinary
claim, South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers marched to a De
Beers mine (Finsch) in that country protesting against racism there.
Conclusions
• The Bushman evictions, and the establishment of the resettlement
camps, have cost millions of dollars. The government has given no
plausible reason for them.
• Both De Beers and the government stand to gain from the profits of
diamond mining. It is at least as valuable to Debswana to keep
diamond deposits secure in the ground for future use as to mine them
now.
• Both De Beers and the government are likely to be concerned that
indigenous peoples' rights, as secured in many other countries (and
recognised in international law), might threaten some of their future
profits from the CKGR.
• The evictions have been ordered by the government. There would have
been no need for them to be ordered by De Beers itself as many of its
directors are senior members of the Botswana government.
• Bushmen are held in very low esteem by Botswana society, which has
a generally racist attitude towards them. Their rights are likely to
be considered as less important than the wealth to be accrued from
diamond mining.
• Given these facts, Survival believes that diamonds, and possibly
precious metals, are the root cause behind the evictions, and that
the government decided to evict the Bushmen in order to avoid any
problems in the future when diamond exploitation goes ahead.
• Paradoxically, however, the Bushmen have never claimed mineral
rights, and there seems no reason to think that future mining could
not go ahead, with proper agreements and safeguards as practised in
other countries, were they allowed back onto their lands and their
rights properly recognised and respected.