SOS Bushmen

Over the past few years, Survival International has carried out a high profile campaign accusing the government of Botswana of removing people from the Kalahari region in order to exploit mineral resources in the area. Botswana has strongly denied this. With emotions running high and with a court case hearing arguments, it is difficult to separate fact from conjecture. In order to do so, we sent Barry Baxter to discuss the issue with the parties concerned, including the national president, Festus Mogae. Here is his report.

The issue is not a simple case of big business bullying a small group of people as it is often portrayed in the mass media. There are complex factors involved.

That the Bushmen residents of Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) should be relocated was decided in principle 20 years ago. The first group moved out 10 years later. The aim, says the government, was to allow the Bushmen to enjoy the benefits of the country's mainstream development such as free Healthcare and education and to protect its natural resources.

The country's five-year-old High Court case to decide if the relocations are unconstitutional is winding up arguments, but a ruling is not expected for some months and is not certain to end the affair. "We will appeal until we are victorious," President Festus Mogae has made clear.

Mogae's main critic, Survival International (SI) director Stephen Corry claims the conflict could be over 'quite literally tomorrow' if Botswana would abandon a hidden agenda to deny the Bushmen any chance to claim royalties from potential mining in the reserve.

Constitutionally, mineral rights in Botswana belong to trustate and benefits from mining activities should be enjoyed by all citizens. But President Mogae, Stephen Corry and mining company De Beers are conscious of the swing in world opinion that recognises the claims of some indigenous communities on the land and the resources over which they live.

Corry says "mining and the Bushmen could coexist in the CKGR if the mines were established and operated with sensitivity and respect."

The mining companies involved so far seem to find little fault with this scenario, even to the extent of negotiating the rights and interests of the Hushmen. Diamonds are the most likely resource to be mined in the reserve; hut major player De Beers - which is the operating partner in a joint venture over a confirmed hut as yet uneconomic reserve in the CKGR at Gope - has a complex relationship with Mogae's government.

Botswana is the world's largest supplier of gemstone diamonds. De Beers is a 50/50 partner in Botswana mining company Debswana. Its International Diamond Trading Company (IDTC) currently markets Botswana's 30m-plus carats annual production which forms 60% of the IDTC's trade and a third of the world's diamonds.

In May, De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer renewed leases to operate the four Botswana diamond mines to 2029 and signed an agreement to establish a Botswana Diamond Trading Company. De Beers has encouraged its sightholders to establish cutting and polishing factories in Botswana - four are in operation. De Beers is not only a partner at Gope, but in exploration activities in many other areas of Botswana.

The government could give the go-ahead to mine in the CKGR and has indicated it would want a viable prospect exploited. Nevertheless, De Beers is clear about its attitude to communities that might be affected by mining operations. The marketing of gem diamonds relies on a climate that in today's world does not include fighting with minority groups.

"Feasibility studies carried out up to 2002 have shown the Gope prospect uneconomic, but should it become commercially viable, the company would recommend the studies be updated with a view to mining, but with regard to its obligations to all relevant parties," Debswana spokesperson Lynette Hori told African Business. "Where mining operations are likely to impact on a community's rights or interests, De Beers is committed to engaging with them transparently and openly, with a view to seeking their free and informed consent before initiating operations. Botswana is no exception." Si's Corry says the Bushmen have not made any suggestions that they would expect royalties or that they were opposed to mining in the CKGR. "First and foremost they want the right to return to their land," he told African Business, but added: "When they have that they will be quite happy to enter into a fair discussion about what happens on that land.

"Botswana has to accept that whatever its own laws may say, there are international laws on the same subjects that it must move towards."

But the government is steadfast: "Any mining company wishing to do business in Botswana must respect our laws and policies," Mogae said in a Gaborone interview.

Who are the 'traditional Bushmen'?

In 1985 - five years after the Gope prospect was identified - the Botswana government expressed concern that residents of the CKGR, given licence to live in the strict conservation area as hunter-gatherers and hunt with traditional weapons, were becoming poor pastoral communities denuding the veldt around their settlements and increasingly dependent on government handouts.

Some were hunting with rifles from the backs of trucks. "They were decimating the wildlife of the reserve," Mogae explained. A subsequent official report gave rise to the policy of voluntary relocation of the residents out of the CKGR to protect the environment.

Critics of the policy say the residents, who have since become internationally known as 'Bushmen' have been uprooted from a traditional lifestyle in their ancestral home to live in resettlement camps.

Mogae disagrees. "We need to be more clear about who these 'Bushmen' are," he said. "The term has become a stereotype for a group of people with a supposed lifestyle of subsistence hunter-gatherers. In truth no such people live in Botswana.

"The communities living within the CKGR before the relocations were multi-ethnic in character. Many of them had been pushed into (what became) the reserve during the period of preindependence Botswana, their own lands in the western Ghanzi district of Botswana taken by white settlers." Ghanzi is adjacent to the CKGR.

"By 1985, most were living at either Old Xade or Gope (both in the CKGR) neither of which by any stretch of the imagination could be described as a traditional settlement. All of them were already dependent on government for social services. How traditional is it for people to live in the middle of a desert while being dependent on government tanker trucks for something as basic as water?"

In 1997, 1,739 residents had moved to Kgoesakeni (New Xade), Kaudwane and Xere, all adjacent to the CKGR and, the government says, with similar terrain and vegetation to that of the areas they had inhabited within the reserve. By 2000, 689 people remained in the reserve.

The relocations remained largely a Botswana affair until November 2001, when the then responsible Botswana cabinet minister Margaret Nasha told a Press conference there were 435 Basarwa left in the CKGR and at 55,000 pula (P) ($10,000) per month, it was too expensive to continue supporting them. Social services, even water supplies would stop in the following January. The Bushmen could voluntarily move into resettlement camps, where they would be able to share in the developments enjoyed by mainstream society. There would be schools, clinics and jobs. Those that stayed would not be supported.

Survival International took up the cudgels on behalf of the Bushmen and the issue became well and truly an international affair.

Mogae admitted to African Busincss: "Perhaps it could have been communicated more effectively to the outside world. In the light of the criticism that has been directed against us, we were also late in adequately briefing our general population about the relocation exercise."

The January deadline was not enforced, and by the time the services were cut, only 17 members of two related families remained in the reserve - and are still there. All those relocated were compensated. The total sum paid to 730 households between 1997 and 2002 was P4.4m ($805,000), plus an extra 10% in disturbance allowances, plus cattle or goats. The government insisted it was doing the best it could by the Bushmen.

A group of students from Mogae's own university, Oxford, visited the CKGR in January. They concluded: "Whilst holding in regard many Western principles, the Botswana government holds in slightly less higher regard those to do with the selfdetermination of people. It is genuine and enlightened - but not as much as the term would mean in the West. Botswana has taken the view that it is doing the right thing and everybody else will accept that. This has become a stumbling block for Botswana."

Tasked with this, Mogae commented: "I honestly do not know what we mean here by 'Western principles'. Are we speaking of universal governance values, where we and others around the world find common ground, or the perceptions that some people from outside our continent may have about us as Africans?"

In May, six Botswana non-governmental organisations formed a coalition in an attempt to resolve the issue of the Bushmen 'at home'. "We do not seek international hype, we seek to resolve the issues," they said. There were signs the government was prepared to talk.

This, says Corry, is a thinly disguised attempt to replace SI with more easily influenced local organisations.

"The Bushmen have consistently told us they want this issue to be as 'internationally noisy' as possible. They have no faith whatsoever that any other process will make any difference to the government's attitude," he says. "They must not be sold out by local NGOs presenting a very watered down version of what they are really asking for."

However, NGOs representing the majority of the San Communities in Southern Africa, including the Bushmen of Central Kalahari, are not convinced that diamonds are the reason for the relocation policy. The Working Group ol Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA), one of the largest groupings of San communities, has stated that: The San regard diamond mining in the CKGR as an option for development."

No end to the affair?

The Botswana government insists the relocation of the residents of the CKGR has nothing to do with mining and everything to do with the future of the Bushmen and the flora and fauna of the CKGR.

In June 2005, the Office of the Ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation/Milltilateral Investment Guarantee Agency following a complaint by the Bushmen NGO First People of the Kalahari and SI, reported: "We have been unable to establish a causal connection between diamond prospecting or mining and dislocation of the San."

The UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Botswana, following a visit to the resettlement camps, has concluded that there is no link between the relocation policy and the prospect of mining in the Reserve.

De Beers has been told this is the case. Debswana spokesperson Hori told African Business: "De Beers has sought and received assurances (from the government) that the relocations are in no way linked to any past, present or possible future mining activity or the presence of any mineral resource in the area."

Botswana's medium term development path is mining-led. It has huge diamond reserves, but production is plateauing. Other minerals will make significant contributions, but core development will rely on diamond revenues. Exploration in the CKGR is ongoing, but feasibility studies carried out by De Beers up to 2002 have shown the Gope prospect uneconomic at the current technical level.

However, if viable prospects are located, Bushmen, relocated or not, are sure to argue that their rights and interests have been adversely impacted. The NGO coalition says regardless of the outcome of the court case, the real issues facing the Bushmen of the CKGR will still need to be resolved through negotiations. De Beers and Sl agree, although Corry says a compromise is unlikely for some time.

"There have been many overtures, particularly over December (2005) and January (2006), about talking or some form of mediation. Nothing has come of any of them, different people in government say different things, some that they are ready to talk but they never actually sit down."

This is denied by government spokesman, the foreign affairs director of information and research, Clifford Maribe. "There have been no approaches that I am aware of," he told African Business. "The issue is before theHigh Court and negotiations or mediation would serve no purpose at all. We are awaiting the outcome of the court case." But the only things certain to happen after a ruling is handed down is that the government will, as Mogae, says, appeal if it loses; and, as Corry says, the campaign by SI will continue if it wins. "No other position is possible," he says.

De Beers clearly wants to talk. "We advocate positive engagement and practical negotiations to resolve differences between the various parties in the interests of everyone involved, especially the San themselves, and De Beers is actively engaging in dialogue with government, NGOs and other influential parties to bring this about," Hori said.

Botswana has enjoyed an average growth rate of around 8% for several years but many Batswana worry that SI '.s campaign could prove a divisive factor in national unity and spark off a series of claims that could paralyse mining activity in the country.