Botswana Bushmen resume court fight over evictions.
Botswana's Bushmen returned to court on Wednesday to fight eviction three years ago from ancestral Kalahari desert lands by a government they say wants to mine for diamonds there.
The case was suspended in late July when the 241 claimants ran out of money and sent envoys around the world who brought back funds, celebrity endorsements and put pressure on major diamond producer De Beers which operates in the area.
The government of the sparsely populated southern African nation says it moved the claimants and their families, some 2,000 people in total, to government-established villages so they could be better integrated into mainstream society.
The legal battle involves land rich in diamonds, which have given Botswana one of the highest gross domestic product figures per head in Africa and helped fund life-prolonging drugs in a country with one of the world's highest HIV rates.
If the Bushmen win, campaign coordinator Mathambo Ngakaeaja said most of them would move back to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve where they used to live.
"Some of the young people are happy in the villages," he told Reuters outside the court. "But for the majority of the older people, it's a terrible place - there's no wild fruit to look for, nothing to hunt. There's nothing to do."
One of the Bushmen in court for the morning's legal discussions wore a waistcoat of animal skins and traditional beads over Western-style trousers, shirt and boots.
The Bushmen have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers in some of southern Africa's least hospitable regions for thousands of years, but officials say they have relied on government handouts for decades.
In the arid Kalahari where they used to live without outside support, they relied in recent decades on government boreholes providing water - until that supply was cut to make them leave.
Bushmen, most of whom live in Namibia and Botswana, are the remnants of tribes also known as the San, and are often referred to by other Botswanans as the Basarwa, or "those without cattle".
Lawyers for the Bushmen say the government violated the constitution when it ordered them off the game reserve and complain they are being railroaded into unwanted development.
Botswana says the Bushmen need to be integrated into society to benefit from education, medical services and jobs. Some have chosen to, going through university and finding jobs.
Anthropologist Sidsel Saugestad from Norway's University of Tromso, observing the court case, said many Bushmen would not want to return to their traditional hunter-gatherer existence but should be given a choice.
"Some want the ancestral life and some want to go to university. Both are legitimate," she said.
Some Western activists have argued the Bushmen are being moved from the Kalahari so the area can be mined, but other observers reject the idea.
"We're talking about an area the size of Denmark," a Western diplomat told Reuters. "If they'd found diamonds, they'd do what they always do - to seal off the area and mine. They wouldn't be relocating people 600 km away."
The legal battle involves land rich in diamonds, which have given Botswana one of the highest gross domestic product figures per head in Africa and helped fund life-prolonging drugs in a country with one of the world's highest HIV rates.
If the Bushmen win, campaign coordinator Mathambo Ngakaeaja said most of them would move back to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve where they used to live.
"Some of the young people are happy in the villages," he told Reuters outside the court. "But for the majority of the older people, it's a terrible place - there's no wild fruit to look for, nothing to hunt. There's nothing to do."
One of the Bushmen in court for the morning's legal discussions wore a waistcoat of animal skins and traditional beads over Western-style trousers, shirt and boots.
The Bushmen have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers in some of southern Africa's least hospitable regions for thousands of years, but officials say they have relied on government handouts for decades.
In the arid Kalahari where they used to live without outside support, they relied in recent decades on government boreholes providing water - until that supply was cut to make them leave.
Bushmen, most of whom live in Namibia and Botswana, are the remnants of tribes also known as the San, and are often referred to by other Botswanans as the Basarwa, or "those without cattle".
Lawyers for the Bushmen say the government violated the constitution when it ordered them off the game reserve and complain they are being railroaded into unwanted development.
Botswana says the Bushmen need to be integrated into society to benefit from education, medical services and jobs. Some have chosen to, going through university and finding jobs.
Anthropologist Sidsel Saugestad from Norway's University of Tromso, observing the court case, said many Bushmen would not want to return to their traditional hunter-gatherer existence but should be given a choice.
"Some want the ancestral life and some want to go to university. Both are legitimate," she said.
Some Western activists have argued the Bushmen are being moved from the Kalahari so the area can be mined, but other observers reject the idea.
"We're talking about an area the size of Denmark," a Western diplomat told Reuters. "If they'd found diamonds, they'd do what they always do - to seal off the area and mine. They wouldn't be relocating people 600 km away."
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03 Novembre 2004 à 11:30 dans
- English
