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biopiracy - san benefit
2004
The San will benefit from jobs, training and scholarships, and could gain ?6m a year if 'P57' is successful on the $3bn annual global slimming market. Pfizer have invested $400m in the drug and say clinical trials suggest it could reduce appetite by 2,000 calories a day.
knowledge robbed
The San people of the Kalahari desert in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola have chewed the hoodia for thousands of years on hunting trips as an appetite suppressant and thirst quencher. However, the patent was awarded on these qualities without their knowledge.
Phytopharm, a UK-based company who jointly patented the succulent with CSIR, a public research institute in South Africa, failed to compensate the San people for their discovery of the appetite-suppressant qualities of the plant. Indeed, Phytopharm 's chief executive told the Financial Times that no communities in southern Africa would directly benefit from the slimming pill because the "people who discovered the plant have disappeared".
biopiracy exposed
ActionAid, working with BioWatch in South Africa, brought global attention to the San's case. We worked with the Observer newspaper, who exposed the patent as a case of 'biopiracy' in June 2001. We jointly hosted San representatives, including San leader Andries SteenKamp (pictured above), at the UN and WTO in September 2001 and the case received global media attention.
justice is done
The San have now had their rights to their traditional knowledge recognised and have signed an historic benefit sharing agreement with CSIR.
The agreement signed in March 2003 gives the San 6% of the royalties and 8% of the milestone payments that CSIR receives from Phytopharm after certain performance targets are reached over the next 3 - 4 years while the slimming pill is being developed.
worse excuse of the year?
Phytopharm's claim that the San people of southern Africa had 'disappeared' was branded the 'worst excuse' at the 2002 Captain Hook Awards held at the UN in The Hague. These awards, organised by the Coalition Against Biopiracy, recognise infamous and outstanding achievements in biopiracy.
san win their case
A UK-based company, Phytopharm, believes that it could be a potential cure for obesity and have patented a drug based on the hoodia suppressant. They claim it will have none of the side effects usually associated with slimming aids because it is derived from a natural product.
Richard Dixey, Phytopharm's chief executive, claimed that the people who discovered the plant had disappeared. But this is not the case. The San bushmen - the Khomani, Kwe, Xung, Xoo and others - today number more than 100,000.
But will it give a new lease of life to the San people? As a result of international campaigning involving ActionAid, the San?s rights to their knowledge on the hoodia plant have now been fully recognised.
In March 2003 they signed a historic benefit sharing agreement with CSIR for the use of their traditional knowledge in the blockbuster slimming pill being developed by the US drug company Pfizer.
The agreement signed in March 2003 gives the San 6% of the royalties and 8% of the milestone payments that CSIR receives from Phytopharm after certain performance targets are reached over the next 3 -4 years while the slimming pill is being
developed.
June 01, 2004
The Struggles Of The San Bushmen
The land to the San is very important because it is a part of their culture and identity. It is a place were cultural traditions are held and where they derive their food from. Culture, to the San, is special and is full of humbleness.
Historic highlights
The San lived well until the Europeans and German setters arrived. Before the Europeans arrived, the San hunted and gathered food. They were slowly driven off their land into the desert by other African groups and Europeans. The ones who stayed, abandoned their lifestyle and started working for the Europeans. Even to this day, most of the Younger Sans adapted to the western-style clothing, music, and educational opportunities. The elders are the ones who are trying to preserve their old way of living by keeping some traditional way of life. In 1961, a refuge was created where the San could hunt and gather freely. In the 1960s, the government supplied health care, and drilled bore holes for water. Later on, the government changed their minds. They took away the San's hunting permits, cut off their medical care, and removed the bore holes that were there for water. The things that the government promised were not fulfilled. The government refused to recognize the San's land ownership rights.The San have created a group called the EIMSA to fight for their land, to keep their culture, and to determine their own future. To this day, they are struggling against discrimination and conflicts over land, water and mineral rights. The San's situation is being recognized by the United Nations Commission for Human Rights. Khomani Bushmen signed land restitution settlement with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and have gotten some of their land back, about 40,000 ha. Over the years, the San have made some progress. They have been profiting of f the great amount of knowledge they've obtained from the woods, animals, and medicinal plants. For instance, the San have helped the government researchers to make an ingredient called P57, a diet pills. Then a landmark sharing agreement was reached for the San to receive a share of the future profits. The San Bushmen have not received all the things that they have ask for. It is under a deal still to be finalized. They are still struggling for protection of their culture, language, and rights to their land.
Claims (what the indigenous people are asking for)
The Sans want their human rights. They want their land back, to preserve and to protect their culture and language, and also to determine their own future.
Agreement reached (yes/no)
Yes, an agreement was attained, but later on the government changed their minds.
Issues and Conflicts (possible human rights abuses)
Life was dangerous for the Sans in the 17th and 18th centuries because German settlers were killing them. Children were kidnapped and enslaved. Many died form diseases, and some had abandoned their old way of living. Most of the younger Sans adapted to the western-style clothing, music, and education opportunities.
Continuing action (if not reached)
Highlights of the agreement (if reached)
-The San got about 40,000ha of land back.
-Money that was raised from projects under the umbrella of the land deal will be used to teach the young generation the San language called Khomani.
Promises kept (Did the government abide by the agreement?)
The government did not abide to their promise. They turned back on their word.
The ‡Khomani San Land Claim
The The San. Kimberly
Pride
http://www.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca/grassroots04/natst20/archives/000157.html
http://www.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=157
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May 31, 2004
The San: Fighting for their Rights
The San language is heavily structured around their strong physical and emotional relationship with the land. Like most other Indigenous groups the San depended on the land for survival. They have a very solid relationship with the land.
In 1999, South African President Thabo Mbeki embrace Khomani San leader Dawid Kruiper in a picturew carried by the worlds media. The land claim, which was lodged under the legal framework provided by the post-apartheid constitution, is the only successful aboriginal lanbd claim in South Africa.
The Khomani San were asking for land and the right to be self-governing.
Their have been many human rights violations by the botswana government over the last couple of years. The botswana government has increased presure on the few San communities lef t in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve by having their waterpumps and boreholes dismantled and all remaining water spilled out onto the ground. People going to these villages are often arrested and sent to towns 5 to 13 hours away in an attempt to stop people from visiting or offering help to these villages. Sometimes when people are stopped they are even tortured, sometimes even for days by the authorities.the botswana government does all of this to try and clear out the land while all the while they say that the relocation is purely voluntary.
So far the government has been keeping their word. The khomani San have received 38,000 hectares of farming land around the Molopo and Nossob rivers in the first phase of the land claim. The second phase of the land claim will be put off until all of the scattered members of the Khomani San have organized their own self governments. In other parts of the South the government is not keeping their word. San communities in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are still being forcfully removed from the land by the government. The government seems intent of removing the San from the land even if it means killing them.
The ‡Khomani San Land Claim
Khomani San - A historic land deal
The San
http://www.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca/grassroots04/natst20/archives/000154.html
http://www.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=154
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San group goes to court
04/07/2004 09:21 - (SA) News24Com
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Maun, Botswana - The plight of southern Africa's earliest inhabitants, the San, comes to the fore on Monday when Botswana's high court begins hearing a landmark land case in the Kalahari desert.
A group of 243 San are challenging their resettlement from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the world's largest sanctuaries and an area they have been calling home for the past 20 000 years.
"We are determined to remain on our ancestral land," says Mathambo Ngakaeja, a co-ordinator of the Botswana chapter of the Working Group on Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA).
At issue is a decision by the Botswana government in 2002 to cut off water, food and health services to the Bushmen of the Kalahari due to costs, and regrouping them in settlements built outside the reserve.
"The government has trampled on our rights, and terminating basic and essential services is tantamount to forced evictions," says Ngakaeja.
"We seek the courts to declare that those who had been effectively forced to move due to the termination of services, should be returned to the CKGR," the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
According to the government, there are 20 000 San remaining in Botswana but various rights groups estimate their number at closer to 48 000.
The San took the government to court in April 2002 seeking an order declaring it illegal to terminate the services to the Bushmen living in the reserve, which was established in 1961 to protect the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the San.
The case was dismissed on a technicality but last month the San won the right to have their claim heard again.
President Festus Mogae has already declared that he is determined to win victory and plans to appeal if the ruling does not go in the government's favour.
Mogae has dismissed the San demands as "nonsense", arguing that as the first settlers in the region, the San could theoretically lay claim to the whole of southern Africa.
He also maintains that the San's nomadic way of life is a vestige of the past and that they now are "settled agriculturalists".
The high court will begin examining the case on Monday with on-site inspections of San villages in the Kalahari reserve, including one that was flattened by the government since the relocation began in 1997.
The government claims that there are now only 17 San living in the reserve but rights groups say 200 have gone back in defiance of Gaborone's campaign.
South African lawyer Glynn Williams is to begin presenting the defence's case during hearings opening on July 12 in New Xade in western Bostwana, a resettlement village outside the sanctuary.
Edited by Tisha Steyn
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