Deprived of water and other government services, arrested for hunting on their lands and forced to migrate to settlements they call "places of death," the San people of Botswana are fighting back.
A month-long tour of the United States by San activists this month is aimed at raising enough money to reopen a court case brought by the San against the government of Botswana. A coalition of San advocacy organizations claims that the government acted illegally in shutting off services to the 52,000 square kilometer Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) and that the San should be allowed to return to their lands, according to Andrew Meldrum of The Guardian.
Decades of dispossession
Rupert Isaacson, author of The Healing Land and an organizer for the San visit, estimates that of the 60,000 San who live in the six countries of the Kalahari Desert—Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Angola—fewer than 10,000 live a traditional life. Most of these people are now living in decrepit settlements on the edges of the game reserve that was once their home.
Ironically, the CKGR was originally designated as a national park in Botswana in 1961 to accommodate the needs of San people living a traditional life there. The San had been confined to the Kalahari area, where herding and farming were not viable ways of life, at the beginning of the 20th century, according to Isaacson.
The Kalahari Peoples’ Fund reports that by 1986, the government of Botswana decided to resettle the CKGR’s residents to settlements along the edge of the reserve. The largest group (three quarters of the CKGR’s population) was resettled in May and June 1997. In 2002, 1,800 more people were evicted from the reserve.
The rationale behind the move was twofold, government spokesman Clifford Maribe told The Guardian. He said the San’s "modern economic activities, be it hunting, arable and/or pastoral agriculture, or some other commercial activity, are inconsistent with the status of the game reserve," and that the San had "been encouraged to move out to give themselves and their children the benefit of development." Maribe said it was too expensive to provide services to remote areas like the CKGR and that development assistance could be provided more effectively in settlements outside the reserve.
Though the government claims the resettlement took place in consultation with the San, the San told Mmegi, a daily independent newspaper in Botswana, that they do not understand the rationale behind their relocation. The same services could be provided at their original settlements within the reserve, they said.
The evictions were first accomplished by means of a carrot, but the stick soon followed. The government offered money and cattle to those who would relocate voluntarily, according to a report for Cultural Survival by Robert Hitchcock, an expert on the San. Those who did not move found that repairs and maintenance for boreholes, buildings, and roads in the reserve lagged for months. Soon the government cut off water supplies to the reserve, closed schools and clinics, and cut off old age and disability pensions. Hunting licenses were revoked, and selective enforcement of wildlife conservation laws by the Department of Wildlife became more common. Eventually, reports surfaced of people being tortured and killed by wildlife officials for hunting illegally.
According to Mmegi, the San have since accused the government of bad faith. Food rations in the new settlements are inadequate and create a cycle of dependency. Settlement schools and clinics have been improved, but there is no money for salaries, and development assistance has been a complete failure in terms of empowerment and capacity building.
Most of those living in the 63 resettlement villages now face landlessness, poverty, loss of identity, discrimination, lack of adequate health and educational services, and increased conflict over land.
Ulterior Motives
Hitchcock reports in the Spring 2002 issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly that the San told him the real reason they were removed from the CKGR was to make room for private enterprise. The San’s fears have since been confirmed by the expansion of ranching and ecotourism ventures within the reserve and recent moves by the government encouraging diamond exploration in the area.
According to Hitchcock’s report, the San were first dispossessed of their land in the 1970s when the government allocated water rights to newcomers who established freehold farms. World Bank-funded projects then resulted in the resettlement of large numbers of San in the interests of establishing commercial ranching operations. Environmental organizations have long advocated that the San be removed from areas in which they felt wildlife and habitat conservation and tourism should be the primary land uses.
"We don’t have any environmental groups joining our cause so far," said Isaacson, "but we’d certainly welcome them."
Though the government has ignored questions about a recent World Bank decision to fund diamond exploration by Kalahari Diamonds Ltd., Survival International director Stephen Corry told The Guardian, "We can only conclude the Botswanan government wants to move the Bushmen in order to have full claim to diamond rights on park lands."
The San are left wondering why outsiders are the only ones who benefit from the reserve, when they have lived there and managed its resources for generations.
The answer may lie with Botswana’s integrationist policies. The government refuses to recognize the San as an indigenous group. Worse, a report released by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in August 2002 condemned Botswana's treatment of the San as racist, pointing to the discriminatory character of some domestic laws, expressions of prejudice against the San by public officials, and the continuing violation of the San’s political, economic, social, and cultural rights through attempts to dispossess them of their land.
An Ongoing Fight
The San’s case against the government in the Botswana High Court was dismissed on a technicality in April 2002. The San appealed and won the right to have the case re-heard. The new case began on July 4, and on July 30 the court adjourned until this November in order to give the San time to raise money to press their case. Roy Sesana and Jumanda Gakelebone from the CKGR; along with translator/facilitator Beata Kasale; and Xhomani San Izaak, Regopstaan and Belinda Kruiper arrived in Los Angeles on August 27. Their Hollywood fundraiser, at which Dave Matthews and Jackson Browne performed, was a success, said Isaacson, who was asked by the Xhomani San to organize the trip.
With the tour, the San hope to raise the $15,000 to $30,000 necessary to bring their case back to court. The activists will travel across the United States, visiting indigenous communities along the way and ending in Washington, D.C., where, with the support of Amnesty International, they will plead their case on Capitol Hill. They also hope to meet with World Bank officials in Washington. The tour’s final stop will be in New York, where they will give a talk moderated by longtime supporter Gloria Steinem at the Museum of Natural History on September 26 and appear before the United Nations on September 27. Survival International plans to sponsor a similar tour in Europe.
For more information about the San’s U.S. tour, visit the PRWeb Press Release. Donations to the campaign may be sent to The Indigenous Land Rights Fund, P.O. Box 923, Malibu, CA 90265.
