Free Republic

Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia €1.1bn (£940m) to fund projects among communities affected by the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel’s government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations. Tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, tortured or driven into the Kalahari desert to starve by German troops between 1904 and 1908 after the Herero and Nama tribes rebelled against colonial rule in what was then named German South West Africa and is now Namibia. Since 2015, Germany has negotiated with the Namibian...

Botswana is a landlocked country which is situated in Southern Africa. It is my favourite country in the world. It is a "Wildlife Paradise" in more ways than one. It is home to the "Big Five" namely Lion, Leopard, Cheetah, Elephant, and Rhino. They are called the "Big Five" because they were difficult to hunt on foot in the past. Botswana has reserved 40% of its land exclusively for wildlife. Botswana is home to many famous "National Parks" and "Game Reserves". The most famous are Chobe National Park and Moremi Game Reserve. Chobe National Park in Northern Botswana is globally...

Early in September, international news was awash with the claim that 87 elephants had been “killed by poachers” in Botswana. The story originated from the NGO Elephants Without Borders, which received massive publicity – and presumably donations – as a result. Even the beleaguered UK Prime Minister tweeted the story, while a petition calling for wildlife guards to be re-armed surpassed 150,000 signatures. I know a little of Botswana. A few years ago, I was declared “public enemy number one”, threatened by a government spokesman on television, and banned from the country. This was because Survival International was instrumental in...

From my Free Web Book 'AncientCanalBuilders.com' The largest wide-array man made (or at least non natural) structure in the world is in fact an ancient terra formed systems of agricultural-aquaculture canals in Northwestern Botswana and Northeastern Namibia, north of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa. Obviously quite ancient, the canal systems no longer provide free flowing water throughout its 105,000 mile array, but many sections show obvious intention to provide cross sectional irrigation. These canals are too evenly spaced over too large an area to be any kind of natural formation. Based on entry and exit points, it is readily...

It is said that "clothes maketh the man." It is therefore a paradox that researchers have not shown more interest in the dress of the San hunter-gatherers, historically among the most studied groups of people in the world. Vibeke Maria Viestad, a senior lecturer at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo, believes this is so because of a prevailing myth about "the nearly naked bushman.""The San people dressed differently from us, often with a bare upper body, and were therefore perceived as naked when first met by Europeans. This view was commonplace in travel...

...for tens of thousands of years, the Khoisan's ancestors were members of "the largest population" on the planet, according to a new study. The Khoisan have long stood apart from other groups within Africa. They look distinct, speak in "click" languages, and have also maintained the greatest genetic diversity known among human populations. Usually, big populations harbor the most diversity. But census counts show that the 100,000 Khoisan speakers in Africa today are far outnumbered by other groups, such as the 45 million Bantu speakers and their 180 million descendants who now speak Swahili and other languages. Researchers have thought...

Wind erosion has lead to an incredible discovery through google maps. Comparable to the Nasca Lines in size, and even more impressive in intricacy, a potential massive lost city or site has been revealed in an area of the “verneukpan” an inhospitable area of salt flats in southern Africa . For over a year now, a young determined Dutchman has been using Google earth to map the world’s ancient sites, very much a crowd-sourced project, with over 900 place markers so far of sites that are known about and links to Wikipedia articles about them. Archeomaps is the brainchild of...

THE Bushmen of the Kalahari — among Africa’s last indigenous peoples — are on the verge of losing their ancestral homeland after the Government of Botswana stepped up a campaign to force them into squalid resettlement camps. The Government has sent heavily armed wildlife guards into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve — an area promised to the Bushmen “in perpetuity”. Some 200 to 250 Gana and Gwi Bushmen live in the area, having drifted back after previous evictions. The Government banned all outsiders, including journalists, from the area. It said a disease had been discovered in the Bushmen’s goats, which...

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...