Joy over court judgment in Botswana - Bush people can return to Kalahari

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Botswana for the bush people of the Kalahari met with great relief at the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV). Otherwise than at first feared, the judges decided that the expulsion of the San was "unlawful and not in keeping with the Constitution” and that the inhabitants had lawfully settled in the reserve in the Kalahari. "this is a fine success for the bush people on the long stony way to pressing for their land rights and a great victory for all indigenous peoples of Africa”, said the GfbV Africa correspondent Ulrich Delius on Thursday.

"Unfortunately more than 20 San, who had signed the appeal lodged in April 2002, could not witness the happy end to the court case. According to information received from the spokesperson of their self-help organisation, Roy Sesana, they died as a result of the bad treatment in the resettlement camps.” His organisation, First People of the Kalahari, was decorated for its non-violent protest against the forced resettlement in the year 2005 with the "Alternative Nobel Prize”.

With threats, arbitrary arrests, murder, torture and other attacks security forces and the authorities of Botswana spread for years a climate of terror among the native inhabitants to make this people of hunters and gatherers leave its traditional settlement area. This was declared a wild life park in the 60s and the authorities make out that they are afraid for the safety of the wild animals. Critics suspect however that these are merely trumped-up arguments to facilitate the mining of the diamond reserves. Environmentalists emphasise that the stock of game has not decreased in recent years.

The expulsion of the bush people was begun by the government in 1986 already. Most of the approximately 50,000 San have already been resettled in 63 new villages outside the game reserve. The San have had to give up already their traditional way of life as hunters and gatherers. Native people have often been arrested for poaching. To force the last San to leave no more water has been delivered to them in the reserve since February 2002. The electricity has also been cut off. Guards prevent those who want to return to their old homeland from so doing