BOTSWANA - "GO HOME" BUSHMAN AID AGENCY TOLD.
Survival International has been told to go home and reconsider its programme to stop the Botswana government's relocation of Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, it was reported on Thursday.
The programme amounted to dishonest blackmail of the government, and was harming Botswana's economy, delegates told Survival head Stephen Corry late on Wednesday at the closing session of a two-day workshop on the issue.
"Survival insists the relocations are to allow the unhindered mining of diamonds in the reserve, neither we nor the Bushmen believe it," delegates said.
The delegates said suggestions that Botswana's diamonds would be the next to be considered as "blood diamonds" had the potential to wreck Botswana's diamond-based economy.
"Survival must not link our diamonds to blood diamonds. That is dishonest, it is blackmail," one delegate said.
"The campaign is based on speculation. It is undermining our economic stability. To bring us down is the strategy we see."
Corry stood his ground.
"I believe in the campaign. And it is a belief honestly arrived at."
Only if the government came up with a clear time frame for discussion with the Bushmen and a decision on their return to the reserve would he reconsider the basis of the Survival campaign.
"We also are eager to move forward," he said. "But our mandate is such we cannot stop until the Bushmen can return to live and hunt on their ancestral lands. Why is government so determined that cannot happen?"
On Tuesday, a United Nations representative warned Survival to avoid an overly simplistic approach to the issue. This would be inherently destructive, he said.
Corry was unmoved.
"When governments move people against their will, there is something they want from their land. Nothing I have heard in the last two days can make me change my mind," he said.
Corry admitted the Survival campaign was based to a large extent on media reports.
"(There are) more than 1,000 clippings. Quotes from the government, the diamond industry. Internationally, this is the subject most associated with Botswana. But concrete things also led us to believe diamonds are the root cause," he said.
Delegates insisted this amounted to nothing more than speculation.
The workshop closed hours late and in disarray as delegates repeated calls for the Survival campaign to be withdrawn.
The delegates said suggestions that Botswana's diamonds would be the next to be considered as "blood diamonds" had the potential to wreck Botswana's diamond-based economy.
"Survival must not link our diamonds to blood diamonds. That is dishonest, it is blackmail," one delegate said.
"The campaign is based on speculation. It is undermining our economic stability. To bring us down is the strategy we see."
Corry stood his ground.
"I believe in the campaign. And it is a belief honestly arrived at."
Only if the government came up with a clear time frame for discussion with the Bushmen and a decision on their return to the reserve would he reconsider the basis of the Survival campaign.
"We also are eager to move forward," he said. "But our mandate is such we cannot stop until the Bushmen can return to live and hunt on their ancestral lands. Why is government so determined that cannot happen?"
On Tuesday, a United Nations representative warned Survival to avoid an overly simplistic approach to the issue. This would be inherently destructive, he said.
Corry was unmoved.
"When governments move people against their will, there is something they want from their land. Nothing I have heard in the last two days can make me change my mind," he said.
Corry admitted the Survival campaign was based to a large extent on media reports.
"(There are) more than 1,000 clippings. Quotes from the government, the diamond industry. Internationally, this is the subject most associated with Botswana. But concrete things also led us to believe diamonds are the root cause," he said.
Delegates insisted this amounted to nothing more than speculation.
The workshop closed hours late and in disarray as delegates repeated calls for the Survival campaign to be withdrawn.
-
18 Mars 2004 à 09:36 dans
- English
