SOS Bushmen

Botswana's Foreign Minister Mompati Merafhe on Thursday denied claims by Britain's Survival International that his government had begun "ethnic cleansing" of San Bushmen from their ancestral land in the Kalahari.

"Nothing could be further from the truth than those malicious allegations being marketed around by a one-issue organisation called Survival International," Merafhe told reporters in Pretoria.

"We are probably the only government in the whole world being taken to task for trying to improve the lot of its people," he said after meeting with his South African counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

"In all other situations the reverse is the case. Governments are taken to task for not looking after their people," he said.

The British non-governmental organisation issued a statement on October 8 accusing the government of completing the "ethnic cleansing" of the Bushmen and forcing them out of their homes "at gunpoint" and burning down their huts.

"Dozens of Bushmen were evicted yesterday (October 8) from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. Police carried out the removals at gunpoint and then set fire to the Bushmen's huts," it said.

"A handful of Bushmen have resisted. The police have told them they will be killed, and are following them to prevent them hunting or gathering any food," Survival added.

Survival International in August accused the government of shutting down the Kalahari reserve as part of a stepped-up campaign "to remove the Bushmen and end their way of life".

"Armed police and wildlife scouts are camped in the Bushmen's reserve and are threatening to shoot them dead," it said.

The government of President Festus Mogae flatly denied that the closure amounted to a clampdown on the Bushmen who have been waging a court battle since July last year over land rights to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the world's largest sanctuaries.

The Botswana government has resettled some 2,000 Bushmen at a new settlement called New Xade, set up in 1997 west of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Some Bushmen have claimed they had been forced out because the government wanted to tap into the sanctuary's tourism potential.

The minister said the Bushmen had been moved to allow them to "continue to commune with fauna and flora in the park instead of getting into the mainstream of our society."

"They can no longer be regarded hunter gatherers. They possess sporting rifles. If we allow them to stay in the park, they will decimate the wildlife which is an important resource for any country," he said.

"Our policy is they must be brought into the mainstream of our society and in so doing be settled into established settlements where schools and other amenities can be provided which cannot be provided in the park."

"We are really doing things we believe to be in the best interests of the people. Of course, some might say these people have the right to choose the way they live. I find that very condescending. We are the government and we have the responsibility to decide what is good and what is bad."

The Botswana high court is in the process of hearing a related case by some 240 Bushmen who were relocated to New Xade in 2002 and who are waging a land claim battle in the court. That case is scheduled to resume in February.