A Landmark Agreement Recognizing the San’s Intellectual Property Rights

On March 24, 2003, a small group of people gathered in the Kalahari Desert of far northern South Africa to observe a momentous occasion. After years of negotiations and uncertainty, representatives of the San peoples of southern Africa joined representatives from South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to celebrate the signing of a benefit-sharing agreement for a drug being developed from a traditional mainstay of the San diet – the seemingly humble Hoodia plant.

Officials of Western governments and international donor agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank will gather in Dhaka next month for the Bangladesh Development Forum. As they forge, and weigh, past and potential commitments to the country, the Peace Campaign Group hopes to draw their attention to the dire situation of the Jumma, the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh.

The culture of the Ma’dan, or Marsh Arabs, is one of the oldest in the Middle East – some say around 5,000 years. Until the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the Ma’dan inhabited the extensive marshlands between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers of southern Iraq, raising buffalo, hunting and gathering, living in mudhif, their distinctive cathedral-shaped reed houses. Many have noted that their homelands encompass the Biblical Garden of Eden.

On the first day of the New Year, indigenous supporters of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) of Chiapas staged a symbolic and peaceful “retaking” of the city of San Cristobal de la Casas. This huge nighttime march drew between 15,000 and 20,000 supporters, gathered to mark the ninth anniversary of the rebel group’s surprise overtaking of San Cristobal and several other towns on January 1, 1994.

Roughly 50 protesters, most of them Roma, gathered in downtown Bucharest on December 10 to call attention to what they regard as institutionalized police discrimination against Roma. The demonstrations took place just a week after, and in response to, the fatal shootings of two Roma youths by police in Buhusi in northern Romania. The Romani CRISS association organized the protests, where they accused the police of targeting the victims because of their ethnicity.

The European Roma Rights Center this week filed a complaint in the European Court of Human Rights charging negligence by Croatian authorities in the case of a Romani man who was savagely attacked by skinheads. Semso Secic was seriously injured in the attack on April 29, 1999 by a group of skinheads; his son narrowly escaped an encounter with another group of skinheads last year. Both incidents were reported in detail to Croatian police, along with evidence of other attacks on Roma by the suspects, but no action was taken to investigate the crimes and prosecute those responsible.

In the last two months a new wave of violence has begun in Chiapas. Several indigenous communities have been attacked by paramilitary militias with handguns and machetes, leaving four dead, dozens wounded, and forcing the population to flee into the mountains without the resources necessary for survival. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court of Mexico has thrown out more than 300 constitutional complaints against an indigenous rights bill that directly undermines the San Andres Accords, which were the fruits of years of peace negotiations.

The Botswana government is pushing on with their ethnocidal policies toward San communities in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Maintaining that the expenses for providing services to communities residing in the reserve are too high, the government stopped delivering water and other essential services to the San last month. This month authorities are intensifying the pressure on Gwi and Gana communities to resettle by dismantling their local boreholes and water pumps, and emptying their reserves onto the desert ground.