SOS Bushmen

Twenty-six Bushmen appeared before a Botswana court Wednesday for allegedly staging "violent protests" over their relocation from ancestral land in the Kalahari but the case was postponed until next month.

Duma Boko, the Bushmens' lawyer, told AFP that the 26 Bushmen facing charges of staging "violent protests" last month and "going into a restricted area" were told to return to court at the end of Novemb.

"They briefly appeared and the date has been set for the 25th of November," he said.

Bushman leader Roy Sesana, his deputy Jumanda Gakelebone and 19 others were nabbed by police at the end of September, apparently for trying to force their way back into their homeland, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).

British non-governmental organisation Survival International caused a furore on October 8 by accusing Botswana of completing the "ethnic cleansing" of the Bushmen and forcing them out of their homes "at gunpoint."

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 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.