Landmark land claims case by Bushmen opens in Botswana
A hearing into a landmark case over the right to ancestral land by the San Bushmen, southern Africa's earliest inhabitants, began Monday in Botswana with their lawyers accusing the state of illegally resettling them.
A group of 243 San Bushmen are challenging their relocation from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the world's largest sanctuaries and an area they have been calling home for the past 20,000 years.
Their lawyer, Gordon Bennett, told the court: "The Botswana constitution protects the rights of its citizens to live anywhere they want. By relocating the Bushmen, the government overlooked the constitutional right of the Bushmen."
"There is no statutory basis on which the relocation was carried out," he said, adding that government claims that the Bushmen had received compensation was a crude attempt to "reconstruct" the case.
The hearings began in a makeshift court in New Xade, a settlement outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a large desert area in central Botswana from which some Bushmen claim they were forcibly evicted.
The courtroom was a dormitory built for the resettled Bushmen. Although a new building it has no electricity and power was being provided by a generator.
The court case started on July 4 with high court judges inspecting settlements built by the state for the San outside the reserve.
The Botswana government controversially decided in 2002 to cut off water, food and health services to the hunter gatherers due to costs and regrouped them into these settlements.
London-based Survival International, which has been waging a 30-year campaign in support of the rights of the San, maintains that they were driven out of the Kalahari to make way for diamond mining, a claim the government has denied.
The San took the government to court in April 2002, seeking an order declaring it illegal to cut off services to the Kalahari reserve but the case was dismissed on a technicality.
Last month, the Bushmen won the right to have their claim heard again before the Botswana high court.
Although the government did not open its case on Monday, Sydney Pilane, Botswana President Festus Mogae's legal adviser, told the three-judge court that the issue of compensation was valid to the suit.
"Compensation is part of the main detail that constitutes the case. It is a background to the relocation and what constitutes the relocation," he said.
But the Bushmens' lawyer Bennett riposted: "This case is concerned with the policies of the government. We are not concerned with the money the government has spent on developing the two settlements," where the San were resettled.
The state is due to present 28 witnesses, including four experts involved in the resettlement process.
The Bushmen's lawyers will produce 12 witnesses, including former civil servant George Silverbuer, who was largely responsible for the creation of the Kalahari sanctuary.
San spokesman Roy Sesana earlier dismissed the state's contention that human beings had no business living with animals and also rejected the argument that the resettled Bushmen now enjoyed the fruits of progress, including schools, hospitals and state-sponsored horticultural projects.
"We deserve the right to stay where we want," he said adding that many in the tribe were still jobless and seeking solace in drink.
Once numbering millions, there are roughly 100,000 San left in southern Africa with almost half of those -- 48,000 -- in Botswana. Others are spread across Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to rights groups.
The state claims that there are now only 17 Bushmen living in the reserve but rights groups say 200 have gone back in defiance of Gaborone's campaign to resettle them outside.
"There is no statutory basis on which the relocation was carried out," he said, adding that government claims that the Bushmen had received compensation was a crude attempt to "reconstruct" the case.
The hearings began in a makeshift court in New Xade, a settlement outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a large desert area in central Botswana from which some Bushmen claim they were forcibly evicted.
The courtroom was a dormitory built for the resettled Bushmen. Although a new building it has no electricity and power was being provided by a generator.
The court case started on July 4 with high court judges inspecting settlements built by the state for the San outside the reserve.
The Botswana government controversially decided in 2002 to cut off water, food and health services to the hunter gatherers due to costs and regrouped them into these settlements.
London-based Survival International, which has been waging a 30-year campaign in support of the rights of the San, maintains that they were driven out of the Kalahari to make way for diamond mining, a claim the government has denied.
The San took the government to court in April 2002, seeking an order declaring it illegal to cut off services to the Kalahari reserve but the case was dismissed on a technicality.
Last month, the Bushmen won the right to have their claim heard again before the Botswana high court.
Although the government did not open its case on Monday, Sydney Pilane, Botswana President Festus Mogae's legal adviser, told the three-judge court that the issue of compensation was valid to the suit.
"Compensation is part of the main detail that constitutes the case. It is a background to the relocation and what constitutes the relocation," he said.
But the Bushmens' lawyer Bennett riposted: "This case is concerned with the policies of the government. We are not concerned with the money the government has spent on developing the two settlements," where the San were resettled.
The state is due to present 28 witnesses, including four experts involved in the resettlement process.
The Bushmen's lawyers will produce 12 witnesses, including former civil servant George Silverbuer, who was largely responsible for the creation of the Kalahari sanctuary.
San spokesman Roy Sesana earlier dismissed the state's contention that human beings had no business living with animals and also rejected the argument that the resettled Bushmen now enjoyed the fruits of progress, including schools, hospitals and state-sponsored horticultural projects.
"We deserve the right to stay where we want," he said adding that many in the tribe were still jobless and seeking solace in drink.
Once numbering millions, there are roughly 100,000 San left in southern Africa with almost half of those -- 48,000 -- in Botswana. Others are spread across Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to rights groups.
The state claims that there are now only 17 Bushmen living in the reserve but rights groups say 200 have gone back in defiance of Gaborone's campaign to resettle them outside.
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11 Juillet 2004 à 11:03 dans
- English
