ComradeMan
24th November 2010, 22:25
Two articles discussing the unjust treatment of one of the world's "oldest" cultures.
http://assets.survivalinternational.org/pictures/53/BOTS-BUSH-SC-B6-005_square_medium.jpg (http://assets.survivalinternational.org/pictures/53/BOTS-BUSH-SC-B6-005_screen.jpg)
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6687
19 November
A Bushman from a settlement deep in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve has travelled to the Gambia to ask the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for help.
Speaking at the African Commission’s international conference earlier this month, Smith Moeti described the Bushmen’s struggle to access water and escape persecution from the Botswana government.
‘The government refuses to provide us with food rations but will not issue us with hunting licences… If we want to eat meat we must hunt without a licence… When we are caught, we are often beaten up by the wildlife scouts’, Moeti told the Commission.
He added, ‘We have been in the Central Kalahari for thousands of years. We do not use guns. As long as we have enough water and food we need very little from the government.’
Moeti also quoted a letter his family had sent him from inside the reserve; ‘We have been abandoned. Thirst and hunger are haunting us and even our health is under threat. Therefore ask the international community to support us.’
Moeti’s grandmother, Xoroxloo Duxee, died of dehydration and starvation in 2005 after the government blockaded the reserve and armed guards prevented the Bushmen from hunting, gathering or obtaining water.
Moeti, who is currently studying for a masters degree in Botswana’s capital, was almost prevented from travelling to Gambia. Botswana officials had advised police at Johannesburg airport not to allow him to travel as ‘his passport was lost’.
Survival has been supporting the Bushmen’s right to live on their own land for years. Despite a High Court ruling that confirmed this right in 2006, the Botswana government is still doing all it can to keep the Bushmen languishing in the resettlement camps some call ‘places of death.’
The government has banned the Bushmen from accessing water inside the reserve, and from hunting. At the same time, it has allowed Wilderness Safaris to erect a luxury tourist lodge with swimming pool on Bushman land, and is due to give the go ahead for a diamond mine, which will require vast amounts of water to operate.
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http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6669#
10 November
Botswana’s minister of environment, wildlife and tourism is the most recent government official to make disparaging remarks about the Kalahari Bushmen
.
In an interview with the BBC, Kitso Mokaila said, ‘I don’t believe you would want to see your own kind living in the dark ages in the middle of nowhere as a choice, when you know that the world has moved forward and has become so technological’.
Mokaila’s remarks are the latest in a long line of insults by government officials, and are an indication of the deep-rooted racism towards the Bushmen.
The president of Botswana, Ian Khama, made similar comments in 2008, describing the Bushmen’s hunting lifestyle as ‘an archaic fantasy’. Last year, a South African woman was arrested for remarking that Khama ‘looked like a Bushman’.
Khama, a board member of Conservation International, has banned the Bushmen from accessing a well which they rely on for water on their lands. At the same time, his administration has drilled new wells for wildlife only, and allowed Wilderness Safaris to erect a luxury tourist lodge on Bushman land. In addition, the government is currently in negotiations with Gem Diamonds to construct a diamond mine on Bushman land.
Khama’s predecessor, Festus Mogae, argued in 1996, that the Bushmen are ‘Stone Age creatures’ who ‘must change or otherwise, like the dodo, they will perish’. His comments came as his government started to move the Bushmen from their ancestral lands; further evictions in 2002 were ruled illegal and unconstitutional by Botswana’s High Court.
The then foreign minister, General Mompati Sebogodi Merafhe, now Botswana’s vice-president, questioned in 2002 why the Bushmen must ‘continue to commune with the flora and fauna’ when they could ‘enjoy the better things in life, like driving Cadillacs’.
Margaret Nasha, former minister for local government and current minister in the office of the president responsible for public service, said in 2002, ‘Sometimes I equate [the Bushman issue] to the elephants. We once had the same problem when we wanted to cull the elephants and people said no.’
Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘Mokaila’s remarks smack of the colonial past and show that the government still holds the same racist attitudes it held back in 2002 when it forced the Bushmen off their lands. The Bushmen deserve respect for their way of life, the same as everyone else. If anyone is ‘living in the dark ages’ it’s the Botswana government’.
Mokaila’s remarks come as Survival launches a call for a boycott of Botswana tourism and diamonds over the government’s treatment of the Bushmen.
http://assets.survivalinternational.org/pictures/53/BOTS-BUSH-SC-B6-005_square_medium.jpg (http://assets.survivalinternational.org/pictures/53/BOTS-BUSH-SC-B6-005_screen.jpg)
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6687
19 November
A Bushman from a settlement deep in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve has travelled to the Gambia to ask the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for help.
Speaking at the African Commission’s international conference earlier this month, Smith Moeti described the Bushmen’s struggle to access water and escape persecution from the Botswana government.
‘The government refuses to provide us with food rations but will not issue us with hunting licences… If we want to eat meat we must hunt without a licence… When we are caught, we are often beaten up by the wildlife scouts’, Moeti told the Commission.
He added, ‘We have been in the Central Kalahari for thousands of years. We do not use guns. As long as we have enough water and food we need very little from the government.’
Moeti also quoted a letter his family had sent him from inside the reserve; ‘We have been abandoned. Thirst and hunger are haunting us and even our health is under threat. Therefore ask the international community to support us.’
Moeti’s grandmother, Xoroxloo Duxee, died of dehydration and starvation in 2005 after the government blockaded the reserve and armed guards prevented the Bushmen from hunting, gathering or obtaining water.
Moeti, who is currently studying for a masters degree in Botswana’s capital, was almost prevented from travelling to Gambia. Botswana officials had advised police at Johannesburg airport not to allow him to travel as ‘his passport was lost’.
Survival has been supporting the Bushmen’s right to live on their own land for years. Despite a High Court ruling that confirmed this right in 2006, the Botswana government is still doing all it can to keep the Bushmen languishing in the resettlement camps some call ‘places of death.’
The government has banned the Bushmen from accessing water inside the reserve, and from hunting. At the same time, it has allowed Wilderness Safaris to erect a luxury tourist lodge with swimming pool on Bushman land, and is due to give the go ahead for a diamond mine, which will require vast amounts of water to operate.
----------
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6669#
10 November
Botswana’s minister of environment, wildlife and tourism is the most recent government official to make disparaging remarks about the Kalahari Bushmen
.
In an interview with the BBC, Kitso Mokaila said, ‘I don’t believe you would want to see your own kind living in the dark ages in the middle of nowhere as a choice, when you know that the world has moved forward and has become so technological’.
Mokaila’s remarks are the latest in a long line of insults by government officials, and are an indication of the deep-rooted racism towards the Bushmen.
The president of Botswana, Ian Khama, made similar comments in 2008, describing the Bushmen’s hunting lifestyle as ‘an archaic fantasy’. Last year, a South African woman was arrested for remarking that Khama ‘looked like a Bushman’.
Khama, a board member of Conservation International, has banned the Bushmen from accessing a well which they rely on for water on their lands. At the same time, his administration has drilled new wells for wildlife only, and allowed Wilderness Safaris to erect a luxury tourist lodge on Bushman land. In addition, the government is currently in negotiations with Gem Diamonds to construct a diamond mine on Bushman land.
Khama’s predecessor, Festus Mogae, argued in 1996, that the Bushmen are ‘Stone Age creatures’ who ‘must change or otherwise, like the dodo, they will perish’. His comments came as his government started to move the Bushmen from their ancestral lands; further evictions in 2002 were ruled illegal and unconstitutional by Botswana’s High Court.
The then foreign minister, General Mompati Sebogodi Merafhe, now Botswana’s vice-president, questioned in 2002 why the Bushmen must ‘continue to commune with the flora and fauna’ when they could ‘enjoy the better things in life, like driving Cadillacs’.
Margaret Nasha, former minister for local government and current minister in the office of the president responsible for public service, said in 2002, ‘Sometimes I equate [the Bushman issue] to the elephants. We once had the same problem when we wanted to cull the elephants and people said no.’
Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘Mokaila’s remarks smack of the colonial past and show that the government still holds the same racist attitudes it held back in 2002 when it forced the Bushmen off their lands. The Bushmen deserve respect for their way of life, the same as everyone else. If anyone is ‘living in the dark ages’ it’s the Botswana government’.
Mokaila’s remarks come as Survival launches a call for a boycott of Botswana tourism and diamonds over the government’s treatment of the Bushmen.