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DISPOSSESSED KAHALARI BUSHMEN TRAVEL STATES ON FUND-RAISING/AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
The San, or Bushmen, of Southern Africa’s Kalahari, are the oldest culture on the planet, dating back at least 70,000 years. Hunter-gatherers with a culture based around healing, they do not make war and enjoy gender equality in their daily lives.
Yet in recent years, these gentle people have been hounded almost out of existence by cattle ranching, diamond mining and cultural genocide. Today, fewer than 10,000 traditional San Bushmen remain across the six countries of the Kalahari (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola). Everywhere else they exist as serfs on other people’s farms, often treated appallingly, or as dispossessed slum-dwellers on the edges of the Kalahari’s few towns.
In 2002, an estimated 1800 of these last traditional San Bushmen were forcibly evicted by the Botswana government from that country’ s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) to make way for new diamond mines (the area in dispute is about the size of Switzerland). Some who resisted were beaten and tortured.
Now they sit in makeshift camps outside the reserve boundaries, forbidden to hunt and gather, slipping into an inevitable cycle of alcoholism and despair.
However, with the help of a human rights law firm (Chennels Albertyn, South Africa), the CKGR Bushmen have now launched a land claim against the Botswana government which came to court in July, 2004.
Public support is desperately needed to get the message out, and to raise funds to keep the case open until it is won. The CKGR was created specifically in 1961 to protect the San traditional way of life. In 1999, a similar land claim was won by Chennels Albertyn on behalf of the Xhomani Bushmen in neighbouring South Africa, so a regional precedent exists.
However, the land claim alone is not enough. Pressure must also be brought to bear on the mining companies with concessions in the CKGR, De Beers and BHP Billiton, to demand that the Botswana Government allow the CKGR Bushmen to go home, live in peace and be compensated for the inevitable disruption that mining will eventually bring.
To bring attention to their plight, CKGR Bushmen Roy Sesana and Jumanda
Gakelebone along with translator/facilitator Beata Kasale are touring the USA on a journey coordinated by human rights author and journalist, Rupert Isaacson.
They are accompanied by Xhomani Bushmen Izaak, Vetkat and Belinda Kruiper as well as several translators, Dr. Megan Biesele of the Kahalari Peoples Fund, several other African healers and a Maori elder, all of whom face similar land issues in their native countries.
Their tour began on August 27 at an Artists for Amnesty fund raiser in Hollywood and Santa Barbara, and continues with a fundraiser and talk in Palm Springs on September 4 followed on September 6 through 12 by their attendance at The Gathering in Big Bear, California - a week-long coming together of elders and healers from over 25 indigenous communities around the world.
From September 15 - 21, the San will travel through Arizona and New Mexico, hosted by the Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo tribes, culminating in a fund raiser at the Salon, an art gallery in Santa Fe owned by photographer Dianne Elise Strauss.
From September 22 - 25, the San are in the Washington, D.C. area to speak at an Amnesty International-sponsored event as well as appearing before the Human Rights Caucus, the Africa Sub-Committee, the State Department and local media, and visiting the new Museum of the American Indian as honored guests.
On September 26 they are guests at the American Museum of Natural History at an event hosted by Gloria Steinem, and the following day, the Bushman delegation will present its plight before the United Nations.
Artists for Amnesty invites you to help us publicize both the Bushmen journey across America and their plight back home.
Contacts: Artists for Amnesty:
Bonnie Abaunza or Mario Tafur: 310 815 0450,
Amnesty International (East Coast)
Adotai Akwei, 202 544 0200
Organizers: Rupert Isaacson, 512 281 5888, Kim Langbecker, 310 8158433;
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