MOGAE BRIBES BUSHMEN WITH BLANKETS, NGO CLAIMS
Botswana President Festus Mogae tried to bribe a Bushman (San) community by giving them blankets ahead of their court bid to be allowed to return to their ancestral land, an NGO claimed on Tuesday.
"Pre-judging the court's ruling, the president told the Bushmen that they should not try to return to their land and also distributed handouts of food, clothing and blankets," said Survival International, a worldwide organisation supporting tribal peoples.
The Botswana High Commission in Pretoria could not be reached for comment on Tuesday night.
Survival International said Sidney Pilane, the lawyer acting for the government in the case, had accompanied Mogae to New Xade, one of the government sites where the Bushmen were taken after being expelled from their land.
Director Stephen Corry said: "To pretend that this visit is not a blatant attempt to influence the court case, and the British MPs' trip (due to visit New Xade at the end of the month), is just naive.
"In other countries, a visit from the head of state -- and defendant --so close to the court hearing would not be allowed."
The court case, which begins on July 5 with an in loco inspection, could decide the future of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen communities.
Lodged by 248 Bushmen and Bakgalagadi adults, it could be a test case for Bushman rights across southern Africa.
The in loco inspection is supposed to visit settlements in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve from which the San were allegedly forcibly removed to settlements outside the reserve.
The Bushmen want the government to recognise their right to return to their land and live there without fear of further eviction, and to hunt and gather freely.
The original case of forced removal from their ancestral land was dismissed on a technicality in April 2002.
However, the Bushmen appealed and won the right to have the case re-heard on its merits.
The Botswana government apparently terminated all services, including water, because it claimed that it could not afford the monthly cost of Botswana pula 55,000.
The first wave of removals took place in 1997, and most of the community has since been relocated to settlements outside the reserve.
In exchange for their traditional hunter-gatherer existence, the Botswana government claims the San have been granted title deeds to 40 by 40 metre plots in a conservation area about the size of Belgium.
The displaced tribesmen have also been given goats and cattle.
"People as old as 80 years and older who have been hunter-gatherers all their lives were expected to become farmers overnight", a South African spokesman for the applicants said on Monday.
The UK-based Survival International has been at the forefront of an awareness campaign, organising petitions across the world against the removal of the San and even suggesting that diamond prospecting could be behind the relocation.
Survival International also accuses the Botswana authorities of harassment of the San, saying they have been "tortured, beaten up or arrested for supposedly over-hunting, or hunting without correct licences".
The Botswana government has vehemently denied these allegations, as well as that diamond prospecting was at the root of the relocation.
Director Stephen Corry said: "To pretend that this visit is not a blatant attempt to influence the court case, and the British MPs' trip (due to visit New Xade at the end of the month), is just naive.
"In other countries, a visit from the head of state -- and defendant --so close to the court hearing would not be allowed."
The court case, which begins on July 5 with an in loco inspection, could decide the future of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen communities.
Lodged by 248 Bushmen and Bakgalagadi adults, it could be a test case for Bushman rights across southern Africa.
The in loco inspection is supposed to visit settlements in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve from which the San were allegedly forcibly removed to settlements outside the reserve.
The Bushmen want the government to recognise their right to return to their land and live there without fear of further eviction, and to hunt and gather freely.
The original case of forced removal from their ancestral land was dismissed on a technicality in April 2002.
However, the Bushmen appealed and won the right to have the case re-heard on its merits.
The Botswana government apparently terminated all services, including water, because it claimed that it could not afford the monthly cost of Botswana pula 55,000.
The first wave of removals took place in 1997, and most of the community has since been relocated to settlements outside the reserve.
In exchange for their traditional hunter-gatherer existence, the Botswana government claims the San have been granted title deeds to 40 by 40 metre plots in a conservation area about the size of Belgium.
The displaced tribesmen have also been given goats and cattle.
"People as old as 80 years and older who have been hunter-gatherers all their lives were expected to become farmers overnight", a South African spokesman for the applicants said on Monday.
The UK-based Survival International has been at the forefront of an awareness campaign, organising petitions across the world against the removal of the San and even suggesting that diamond prospecting could be behind the relocation.
Survival International also accuses the Botswana authorities of harassment of the San, saying they have been "tortured, beaten up or arrested for supposedly over-hunting, or hunting without correct licences".
The Botswana government has vehemently denied these allegations, as well as that diamond prospecting was at the root of the relocation.
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23 Juin 2004 à 09:48 dans
- English
