A Botswana court will decide this week whether hundreds of San Bushmen can return to their ancestral land in a dispute activists say pits Africa's last hunter gatherers against the world's hunger for diamonds.
GABORONE -- A Botswana court will decide this week whether hundreds of San Bushmen can return to their ancestral land in a dispute activists say pits Africa's last hunter gatherers against the world's hunger for diamonds.
The Bushmen say Botswana illegally forced them off hunting grounds in the Kalahari desert to make way for diamond mining, pushing them into camps where, unable to pursue their centuries-old nomadic way of life, they have sunk into poverty.
Botswana's government says the San had long abandoned their traditional lifestyle and were threatening wildlife in the protected Central Kalarahi Game Reserve. It says Bushmen need access to education and health services, and deny plans to mine the vast, desert region.
British-based pressure group Survival International, which is backing the Bushmen, has waged an aggressive campaign against both the Botswana government and global diamond giant De Beers, which has extensive operations in the country.
"Is it for the government to tell the Basarwa (Bushmen) how and where they should live their lives, or are the Basarwa to be allowed to make those decisions for themselves?" Bushmen lawyer Gordon Bennett said on Survival's Web site.
"The test of a mature democracy is its ability to tolerate and respect the choices made by its minorities, and to resist the temptation to impose upon them a way of life they may not want and do not seek."
De Beers, the world's largest diamond mining company, says no mining is taking place in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and denies that the relocation is to clear the area for future operations.
"There is no connection between diamonds and the relocation of the San," De Beers says on its Web site. "What is really taking place ... is a debate on two competing models of sustainable development for the San communities."
UNDER SCRUTINY
Botswana, a vast but sparsely populated arid country neighbouring South Africa, has been lauded as an African success story, but its democratic credentials have come under scrutiny in recent years amid charges it has mistreated the Bushmen and stifled critics.
Government spokesman Clifford Maribe denied the allegations and said most Bushmen were happier outside the reserve. He said campaigners had romanticised the hunter gatherer lifestyle and hijacked the wishes of the majority.
"Even before the resettlements they were not living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They were growing crops and hunting with dogs, horses, and sometimes vehicles and guns bought outside the reserve," he told Reuters.
He said the reserve was a "poverty trap" for the Bushmen, who would thrive by resettling in areas where they could rear cattle and launch small-scale manufacturing businesses.
The government has resettled about 2,000 Bushmen since the late 1990s and said all but about 24 had voluntarily left the reserve. Survival, which has come under fire for its acrimonious campaign, says some 250 Bushmen still live on the reserve and at least 1,000 want to return.
Botswana's High Court in Lobatse, near Gaborone, is due to decide on Wednesday whether the 2002 eviction of Bushmen to a new settlement was illegal -- a ruling that could force the government to allow the Bushmen to return to the land where their ancestors hunted for thousands of years.
The case was originally brought by a group of some 240 Bushmen, who have appealed to Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio for backing to time with the release of his latest film, "Blood Diamond".
The key campaigners for the Bushmen were not immediately available to comment on Sunday.
Source: Reuters
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