Amid escalating tensions between the Botswana government and the San, an altercation between San demonstrators and Botswana police resulted in the arrest of over 20 San on September 24, just outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Roy Sesana and Jumanda Gakelebone, two prominent members of the organization First People of the Kalahari, were among those arrested.
Sesana, Gakelebone, and fellow protesters were attempting to enter the CKGR to bring food, water, and other supplies for the roughly 250 Gwi and Gana San residing inside the reserve, according to Survival International. Botswana closed the CKGR to the public on September 1 citing and administrative reasons and also claiming that they wished to quarantine an outbreak of sarcoptic mange (scabbies) among the domesticated goats of the San living in the CKGR.
"This disease, while potentially serious in some populations, can be very easily treated in domestic animals with modern drugs," an international group of veterinary experts wrote to dismiss the government’s reasons for closing the park in a joint statement reported in the Johannesburg newspaper Business Day. With the closure, the government cut off outside contact with San inside the CKGR.
In a press release dated September 27, the government of Botswana claims that the demonstrators "were unremittingly hurling insults and verbal abuse at the police" and that a small group of protestors "displayed threatening behavior."
The Botswana government’s statement said that the police "exercised patience and great restraint," but were ultimately forced to fire rubber bullets after the demonstrators began to riot. All of whom the demonstrators were subsequently arrested then released on bail after four days in custody.
Survival International reported on September 26 that two of the San demonstrators were shot at repeatedly and that one individual required hospitalization. The report also alleges that while in custody five of the detainees were tortured by Botswana police.
In 1997, Botswana instituted a policy of removing approximately 1,700 Gana and Gwi San Bushmen from their ancestral lands in the CKGR after the government completed a fact finding mission regarding land use conflicts which provided information on environmental protection, wildlife conservation and the socio-economic development of the communities inside the reserve.
Based on the conclusions of this fact finding mission, a report posted on the Government of Botswana website entitled The Relocation of the Basarwa from the CKGR, the resettlement project was justified by claiming that "the development of permanent settlements in the Game Reserve coupled with the new hunting and herding activities [such as use of guns, horses and dogs] of the residents were inconsistent with wildlife conservation in the CKGR."
The government also claimed that it was not economically feasible to provide services such as education, drinking water, and medical services to the San, who were not living in concentrated areas.
In a 2002 Cultural Survival Quarterly, anthropologist Robert Hitchcock wrote that outside pressure forced the government to free the CKGR of people to make room for diamond mining and high-end tourism. The reserve had been set aside in 1966 to protect San rights to self-determination.
The government subsequently denied the San of infrastructural and social services, forcing many to leave their ancestral homelands and resettle into dysfunctional camps at New Xade and Kuadwane several kilometers outside of the reserve.
Over the past three years, small groups of San who found life in the resettlement camps intolerable returned to the CKGR despite government prohibition. Since the official closure of the CKGR, communication with these San has been inconsistent.
Led by Sesana and Gakelebone in 2002, a group of 242 San filed an appeal to the High Court of Botswana to request that the withdrawal of services from the CKGR be ruled unlawful and that those who were forcibly removed from the reserve be allowed to return. The case is ongoing.
On September 29, five days after his arrest, Sesana and his organization First People of the Kalahari were commended for their "resolute resistance against eviction from their ancestral lands, and for upholding the right to their traditional way of life" with Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award, considered the "Alternative Nobel Peace Prize."
