San in battle over Botswana diamonds

GABORONE – A long-running row is heating up over a small group of Botswana’s San fighting to retain ancestral lands in the heart of southern Africa.

The few dozen San (formerly known as Bushmen) remaining in the vast Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) pose a dilemma for the government as it tries to preserve an ancient culture while at the same time using diamond revenues to eradicate poverty. The government says the San – a term it uses to describe various tribes of southern Africa’s oldest inhabitants – should leave the reserve to share the country’s new-found wealth and offer their children a decent modern education.The authorities have withdrawn basic amenities from the area and offered cash and other incentives to move.Critics say the government wants to move the San only to free the land for diamond mining and negate any claim they may have to the resulting revenue.Groups like British-based Survival International, which has made the San a cause celebre, say they should be allowed to stay on in the reserve to pursue the self-sufficient hunter gatherer life which they developed over tens of thousands of years in some of Africa’s most inhospitable terrain.”There is enough space in the CKGR for San, tourists and diamond mining… We want a place of belonging,” said one professional, university-educated woman from a San community who now works in the capital Gaborone and asked not to be named.”Botswana will not be divided on ethnic grounds,” President Festus Mogae told one news conference where the subject arose.”The government will develop the San in the same way as the members of any other ethnic group in the country.We are one nation.”Mogae, an Oxford-educated economist and former executive director of the International Monetary Fund, is set to face his most ardent critics from Survival International at a “world assembly” of civil society groups starting in Gaborone on March 21.NO CATTLEThe San, most of whom live in Botswana and Namibia, are the remnants of tribes once found across southern Africa.They were gradually pushed into the more arid and remote areas by the southern advance of cattle-herding Bantu over hundreds of years – and later by whites moving up from the Cape who sometimes hunted them like animals.They are known as Basarwa in Botswana as “Those who do not have cattle” in the Setswana language – and have long complained of prejudice and discrimination from their countrymen.Mogae’s government insists all of Botswana’s people should share equally in the country’s mineral wealth, but says it is too expensive to provide water and other basic services to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and anyone who stays must fend for themselves.That should not be such a tall order: Bushmen are renowned for their ability – built on thousands of years of experience passed from generation to generation – to find water, food and medicine in the arid veldt.Yet thousands have been moved from the CKGR to settlements outside.The government says relocation is voluntary, but some San and campaigners say some families have been forced to leave by intimidation or other means.There are now only an estimated 55 San left in a reserve bigger than the Netherlands – a tiny proportion even in a country of just 1.7 million.And as it nurtures a small but lucrative tourist industry in a bid to reduce its dependence on diamonds, the government is keen not to put off Europeans and Americans drawn at least in part by a rare good news story in a continent stained with decades of bloodshed.Yet despite many San who have overcome prejudice to share in Botswana’s success and join Gaborone’s fast-growing professional class, many of those relocated from the Central Kalahari have failed to make the transition.Some end up jobless, drunk or plain bored, never finding a secure income or permanent home and spending their time in resettlement camps.- Nampa-ReutersThe government says the San – a term it uses to describe various tribes of southern Africa’s oldest inhabitants – should leave the reserve to share the country’s new-found wealth and offer their children a decent modern education.The authorities have withdrawn basic amenities from the area and offered cash and other incentives to move.Critics say the government wants to move the San only to free the land for diamond mining and negate any claim they may have to the resulting revenue.Groups like British-based Survival International, which has made the San a cause celebre, say they should be allowed to stay on in the reserve to pursue the self-sufficient hunter gatherer life which they developed over tens of thousands of years in some of Africa’s most inhospitable terrain.”There is enough space in the CKGR for San, tourists and diamond mining… We want a place of belonging,” said one professional, university-educated woman from a San community who now works in the capital Gaborone and asked not to be named.”Botswana will not be divided on ethnic grounds,” President Festus Mogae told one news conference where the subject arose.”The government will develop the San in the same way as the members of any other ethnic group in the country.We are one nation.”Mogae, an Oxford-educated economist and former executive director of the International Monetary Fund, is set to face his most ardent critics from Survival International at a “world assembly” of civil society groups starting in Gaborone on March 21.NO CATTLEThe San, most of whom live in Botswana and Namibia, are the remnants of tribes once found across southern Africa.They were gradually pushed into the more arid and remote areas by the southern advance of cattle-herding Bantu over hundreds of years – and later by whites moving up from the Cape who sometimes hunted them like animals.They are known as Basarwa in Botswana as “Those who do not have cattle” in the Setswana language – and have long complained of prejudice and discrimination from their countrymen.Mogae’s government insists all of Botswana’s people should share equally in the country’s mineral wealth, but says it is too expensive to provide water and other basic services to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and anyone who stays must fend for themselves.That should not be such a tall order: Bushmen are renowned for their ability – built on thousands of years of experience passed from generation to generation – to find water, food and medicine in the arid veldt.Yet thousands have been moved from the CKGR to settlements outside.The government says relocation is voluntary, but some San and campaigners say some families have been forced to leave by intimidation or other means.There are now only an estimated 55 San left in a reserve bigger than the Netherlands – a tiny proportion even in a country of just 1.7 million.And as it nurtures a small but lucrative tourist industry in a bid to reduce its dependence on diamonds, the government is keen not to put off Europeans and Americans drawn at least in part by a rare good news story in a continent stained with decades of bloodshed.Yet despite many San who have overcome prejudice to share in Botswana’s success and join Gaborone’s fast-growing professional class, many of those relocated from the Central Kalahari have failed to make the transition.Some end up jobless, drunk or plain bored, never finding a secure income or permanent home and spending their time in resettlement camps.- Nampa-Reuters