Botswana court rules San Bushmen evicted unlawfully

Botswana court rules San Bushmen evicted unlawfully

By Caroline Southey in Johannesburg - Financial Times

14th December 2006

A group of San Bushmen won a landmark victory yesterday when Botswana's High Court ruled that they had been unlawfully removed from their ancestral lands by the government.

The case has been watched closely by human rights lawyers who are hoping it will set a precedent for other indigenous groups seeking rights to their ancestral lands.

The case was brought by the First People of the Kalahari, who were demanding the right to live and hunt in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, with the support of London-based NGO Survival International. Most of the 1,500 Bushmen who lived in the reserve until 1996 have been forced out or relocated to new settlements by the Botswana government.

Gordon Bennett, the Bushmen's lawyer, said the court's ruling was about the "rights of the applicants to live inside the reserve as long as they want - and that's a marvellous victory".

About 100 Bushmen pack-ed the small courtroom in Lobatse, some 60km from the capital Gaborone, to hear the judgment.

But the case is unlikely to end the dispute. The government said the court's ruling was a "mixed decision" and that it was "not at all clear what it means in terms of implementation".

In evidence before the court the Bushmen claimed they had been driven off the land by a combination of forced removals as well as the discontinuation of basic services such as water, food rations and mobile clinics. The government has argued that the Basarwa, also known as the San, had abandoned their traditional ways of hunting in favour of guns and modern vehicles.

But Glyn Williams, a South African-based human rights lawyer closely invol-ved in the case, said the government's claims were "simply not true". He said the community, which shrank to as few as 220 when essential services were cut off, would grow again if the government abided by the decision and committed itself to a development programme.

Mining houses with prospecting rights in the park have been watching the case closely. Although none has been directly involved in the dispute, sensitivities about the rights of communities in mining areas remain high.

Botswana is the world's biggest producer of diamonds by value and has been the focus of attention for mining companies searching for new deposits as demand has outstripped supply. About six mining companies, including the biggest diamond producer De Beers, have exploration rights in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.