NEWS 2004

 

What just world ? - in a country which oppresses its first people!

Thoughts also for the corridors of the 5th CIVICUS World Assembly meeting, which will be held under the motto:

ACTING TOGETHER FOR A JUST WORLD in Gaborone, Botswana, March 21-25, 2004.


"Life can not just depend on lawyers!", 
- and stop buying these bloodstained diamonds for your love!


"Life can not just depend on lawyers", a traditional group of Gana commented during a recent visit of journalists in Botswana the continuous circling of governmental and non-governmental activities sourrounding the plight and struggle of the First People of the Kalahari and southern Africa, the San. 

"It is as if suddenly you find in the morning four people sitting uninvited in your car, and they "kindly want to take you for a ride on the backseat", one observer thought aloud "and the next day you are kicked out and have to place your hope on a court run by your abductors. There is no hope to reconstitute your possession - it's never going to happen that way!" 

"If the world at large would have been serious with protecting our rights, they would have dragged the ruling and governing elites of South-Africa, Botswana and Namibia since long in front of an international tribunal or the International Court of Justice and prosecuted them for crimes against humanity and for actual genocide", was another voice. 

And nobody can blame these people, if they ask: "Shall we be forced to finally choose a strategy to set up a rebel army, fight for our freedom and invite military support from those to whom we then will have to dish out the riches of the Kalahari, the diamonds and all, like it has been done with the "liberation" of former Zaire - todays Congo?" 

The only point which actually stands against the realization of such scenario is the very culture the modern world tries to destroy: The San are peaceful and peaceloving people ! But does this give the aggressor the right to even push them harder towards extinction ? 

ECOTERRA Intl.