Judge Rejects Kalahari Bushmen's Land Claim

Independent (UK) ^ | 4-20-2002 | Karen McGregor

[blam]

Judge rejects Kalahari bushmen's land claim

By Karen MacGregor
20 April 2002

Botswana's bushmen suffered a setback in a court battle against eviction from their ancestral lands in a game reserve yesterday when a court rejected their lawsuit because their papers were not in order.

Judge Maruping Dibotelo dismissed a suit by the Baswara or San people of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, an arid area of 20,000 square miles in central Botswana, who are challenging their eviction from land where they continue their traditional lifestyle of hunter-gatherers. The San people say they cannot abandon their land because it contains the graves of ancestors and preserves their cherished lifestyle.

Stephen Corry, director of the London-based pressure group Survival International, said: "The case has been thrown out on a technicality. This is another stalling attempt by the government to force the bushmen out of the reserve to open the area up for mining."

The government earns huge revenues from mining. Mr Corry said feasibility studies had already been done on one mine inside the reserve.

In February the government cut off water and other services to the few hundred Baswara who lived in the reserve. It argued that the Baswara needed development and that the services it provided them, such as water, health care and allowances, would be more sustainable if delivered outside the reserve.

The Baswara are asking the court, on constitutional grounds, to order that services are reinstated. Now most are living outside the reserve, with only a few dozen believed to remain inside, defying the bar on water and resources siege.

The judge said the San's lawyers had not properly prepared the case. "There has been considerable disregard of the rules of the court and this is totally unacceptable," he reportedly said, but left the door open for the suit to be refiled.

Rahim Khan, one of the lawyers, said he hoped the case would be refiled next week.

[blam]

The Bushmen are the oldest known residents of Africa and are , in fact, Mongoloid. (Some even say that they are the source of the Irish legends of Leprechauns)

[Dante3]

The Bushmen deserve to win. They are very likeable people.

[quebecois]

One of the best kept secrets of the politics of southern africa is that the blacks are NOT the aboriginal population of southern africa. They moved into south africa much later and displaced the aboriginal bushmen (who are NOT negroid in race). Thus, the claim of "colonial oppression" against europeans is both inaccurate and hypocritical.

[blam]

"the blacks are NOT the aboriginal population of southern africa. They moved into south africa much later and displaced the aboriginal bushmen (who are NOT negroid in race).

Yup. The Bushmen are physically different than all other humans on earth. The males have a semi erect penis and the females have a skin apron over the genitals. The Bushmen who starred in the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, were not full blooded Bushmen. The uniquness of the Bushmen is recorded in ancient Egyptian hyreglyphs(sp).

[a history buff]

bump

[Dante3]

Weren't the Bushmen in the films "Gods must be crazy" and "Gods must be crazy II"?

[Boyd]

Ah, yes:

"Two large mining companies, Debswana (formed by the government and South Africa'sDebeers in equal partnership) and Bamangwato Concessions, Ltd. (BCL-also with substantial government equity participation) operate in the country.

Since the early 1980s, the country has become the world's largest producer of quality diamonds. Three large diamond mines have opened since independence. Debeers prospectorsdiscovered diamonds in northern Botswana in the early 1970s. The first mine beganproduction at Orapa in 1972, followed by the smaller mine at Lethakane. What has becomethe single-richest diamond mine in the world opened in Jwaneng in 1982. Botswana produceda total of 16.8 million carats of diamonds from the three Debswana mines in 1995. "