SOS Bushmen

Namibia's San, or Bushmen, have experienced a deterioration in their economic and political rights since independence 12 years ago, according to a report released Tuesday.

The British-based Minority Rights Group International in particluar criticized the Namibian government for not formally recognizing the existence of the the southwewst African country's 31,000 San outside the former "Bushmanland" in northern Namibia.

"The status of the San has arguably deteriorated in the 12 years since Namibian independence," anthropologist James Suzman of Cambridge University said in the report, launched in Windhoek at the start of a conference on Namibian minorities.

"The government's failure to deal with the apparent intractability of the San's marginalisation has been compounded by its refusal to formally recognize the existence of San traditional communities outside the former 'Bushmanland'," he said.

The also criticized the government's treatment of the highly marginalized San community in western Caprivi (in northeast Namibia) and its failure to prioritise the San in the land redistribution process.

The report also referred to problems faced by Namibia's Himba tribes, saying they had lived successfully as pastoralists, but their future was threatened by government plans to construct a large hydropower project at Epupa on the Kunene River.

The project would flood ancestral lands, graves and pastures, the report said.

White Namibians fear a similar fate like whites in Zimbabwe, particularly if the government fails to address the land reform, the report said.

"These anxieties were sharpened by a series of contradictory statements about white people uttered by senior government officials," including President Sam Nujoma.