SOS Bushmen

Kalahari Bushmen take on mining titan over right to land Relocated to give way for mining, they want land - and a say Washington Correspondent A BHP BILLITON project in the Kalahari may have run into a small snag: specifically, a 10cm-high pair of antelope horns. Roy Sesana, head of the Bushmen advocacy group First People of the Kalahari, sported them as part of a traditional headdress to a recent meeting with the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Washington. His charge: an IFC-funded diamond mining partnership with BHP Billiton played a role in their forced relocation from their ancestral homelands. Now they want BHP Billiton's help to get them back.

In early 2002, Botswana's government removed the Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Sesana says local officials told him it was to clear the way for diamond mining exploration, and shortly after the relocations Botswana's government issued mineral leases for much of the area. The next month a BHP Billiton spin-off, Kalahari Diamonds, received $2m in IFC loan guarantees to support exploration in the reserve. However, the Botswana government and Kalahari Diamonds deny ties between relocations and diamond mining. "We're quite comfortable there is no link," says Kalahari Diamonds GM John Bristow, noting the relocations had been under way and were completed before the new leases were issued. Sesana is not alone in thinking there is a connection. US-based nongovernmental organisation Bank Information Centre, a World Bank watchdog group, questions whether the loans violated bank regulations on indigenous people.

"We believe that this proposal fails to address profound environmental and social issues," they wrote to the IFC last year, noting the project review made no mention of the Bushmen and their struggle. The Bushmen are among the world's oldest people, and the reserve was created in 1961 specifically as a home for them.

Sesana says his people have no objection to mining, so long as they can return to their traditional lands. "We simply do not want to be displaced - and we want to be involved in the decision-making process, should any mining go ahead on our ancestral lands." He asked the IFC and Kalahari Diamonds to put pressure on Botswana's government to allow them to return. The IFC is now planning an internal review to determine if the project is following international guidelines. BHP Billiton is no stranger to controversy, having endured years of tough questions over environmental degradation downstream of their Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea. They prefer instead to draw attention to their Ekati mine in Canada's Northwest Territory as a model partnership with indigenous people. Bristow says Kalahari Diamonds is willing to work with locals in the Kalahari as well. "We don't see a reason to relocate people, in fact we'd need people there to work. In the unlucky event that we found a kimberlite pipe in someone's mealie field, we'd work with them to make sure they were well taken care of," he says. Critics say the relationship between Botswana's government and the mining industry means they cannot be trusted to be honest brokers. Botswana splits profit from its mining partnership with the De Beers diamond group 50/50, and it is common practice for directors of joint mining operation Debswana to hold high ministerial positions. The issue comes at a difficult time for Botswana's government, which just endured the longest ever strike by Debswana employees. Industry officials believe Debswana, which provides half of government revenue, may miss its year-end production goal of 30-million carats.

The Bushman's cause got a boost earlier this summer when supermodel Iman Bowie dropped her contract as the spokeswoman for De Beers, citing concern about the Bushmen. Earlier this month Sesana and other Bushmen were guests at a Hollywood fundraiser to raise money for a pending legal challenge to their removals. That case, before Botswana's high court, is set to conclude in November. A settlement cannot come soon enough, as life in the resettlement camps is a challenge. "There is no work, no food, only AIDS and drinking," says Sesana. "There our culture is slowly dying."