SOS Bushmen

AFTER years of debate over the link between the relocation of Botswana's Kalahari Bushmen and diamond exploration, renewed mineral exploration on Bushmen land is rekindling the controversy.

Reports of drilling in the area come just weeks before a key court ruling on the fate of the area is scheduled to be delivered.

Business Day has confirmed that TH Drilling (THD) of Gaborone, Botswana, has sent crews into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) to drill 15 test pipes on leases held by Petra Diamonds in the Gope area.

The government is accused of putting the interests of the reserve before those of its people and securing its mineral interest.

It is the first on-the-ground exploration since Bushmen in the reserve were moved to resettlement camps, and comes just weeks before the Botswana high court's planned December 13 ruling on Bushmen claims that they were unconstitutionally evicted from their ancestral land to make way for diamond exploration. A successful claim might make it more difficult for the government to exploit any mineral finds, although the state owns all mineral deposits in Botswana.

After encountering THD crews in the field, Bushmen advocacy group First People of the Kalahari issued a statement last week saying "drilling is now taking place inside the CKGR, from where we have been moved for diamonds".

Roy Sesana is the first applicant in the case and a founder member of the First People of the Kalahari, a nongovernmental body established to represent the reserve's residents.

"It is our ancestral land and our parents have been buried there for as long as we can remember. We were told to leave... because of diamonds found under our land," he says.

The areas in question have been on a retention licence that was issued in 2002, shortly after about 2200 former residents were relocated to areas outside the reserve.

The licence is due to either expire or be renewed next month.

"Mining companies should listen to the message of the Bushmen, who regard Botswana diamonds as conflict diamonds and who demand that there should be no drilling or exploration on their land until they are allowed back home," said Fiona Watson, of rights group Survival International.

The reserve was created in 1963 by British colonial authorities as a place for the Bushmen -- who are among the world's oldest peoples -- to continue living their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

In the 1980s, diamonds were discovered in the area around Gope in the contested area.

After many years of discussions over the compatibility of humans living inside a game reserve, a first round of resettlements took place in 1997.

After cutting off all government services in the area, a second round of resettlements took place in April 2002, and in the weeks following mineral leases were issued for most of the reserve.

In total, most of Botswana's 50000 San have already been relocated into 63 resettlement villages, where water, health and education services are provided, but the communities are dying. There are no jobs, hunting is impossible and arid conditions make farming difficult.

Botswana government officials maintain that the relocations were entirely voluntary, and were intended to better serve the communities with water and other resources, as well as facilitate integration of the Bushmen with a modern lifestyle.

Sesana said that when his family was told to pack up for relocation: "They had been told by the officials that if they stayed behind, the soldiers would come and put them inside the huts and burn them. They had no choice.

"The government is forcing people to move. We are being treated like refugees," the BBC has quoted him as saying.

The US state department's human rights report last year listed the Bushmen as being "forcibly resettled" -- one of the few blemishes on the country's rights record.

Critics have compared the resettlement villages to reservations established in North America, says the BBC.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has released a statement saying: "Those resisting resettlement have been abused, cut off from food and water, and deprived of their most basic human rights. Alcoholism, prostitution and HIV/AIDS have become issues with the San for the first time in their existence."

Bushmen, whose forefathers have been in the area for an estimated 30000 years, consider the graves of their ancestors as healing places, and depend on herbs and roots for medicinal purposes.

Whether it is from being cut off from burial grounds, moved out of range for many of the veld products they traditionally use, or exposure to unfamiliar diseases, what is not in dispute is that the health of the Bushmen has waned dramatically in the process.

Returning to the reserve is not permitted. However, a few people, citing harsh conditions in the resettlement areas, have returned to their former homelands.

The management plan for the reserve bans hunting, cultivation of food and keeping any livestock, severely limiting the way of life for those who have returned.

First filed in the months after resettlement, then refilled in 2004, the Bushmen's case hinges on constitutional guarantees regarding their right to access land in the reserve.

The government's position is that they have a responsibility to provide equal access to services, which may require moving the people to the services, and that the Bushmen no longer live as they did when the reserve was created, and are now threatening wildlife.

In the past months Botswana police have restricted the movements and access to food and water of the handful of Bushmen who have left the squalid resettlement camps to return to the park.

Officials also threw a cordon around the San's encampment, saying there was a danger the group's goats would infect the park's wildlife with mange.

However, several vets released a report saying the mange claims are exaggerated.

Having dragged on for years, the Bushmen's lawsuit has become the longest and most expensive case in Botswana's history, often taking breaks while First People of the Kalahari raised money to pay legal fees. According to Survival International, more than 10% of the 143 original appellants have died since the case went to trial.

In 2002 Maj-Gen Moeng Pheto, a retired army officer overseeing the relocation programme said: "We are a little puzzled about the fact that the world is so alarmed.

"We are doing what we consider to be the best for our people. We want to empower the Basarwa and make sure they have a future in this country," Pheto said, "because they cannot forever remain nomadic."

Yet even as the case nears its conclusion, there is open debate over what exactly the conflict might be. Bushmen leaders have repeatedly claimed that they have no concerns over mining on their lands, so long as they can be allowed to live there.

Petra Diamonds CEO Johan Dippenaar said recently Petra was drilling in the central Kalahari under a permit to undertake research granted by the Botswana government. The permit was strict and extremely specific in its conditions. The central Kalahari was a vast area and Petra Diamonds was operating only in a very small portion of it, he said.

Asked to respond to Survival International's plea for mining companies to support the Bushmen's call to avoid drilling or exploring until they were allowed to return to the mine, Dippenaar says Petra Diamonds does not have a position on the issue. Its policy is generally to operate responsibly.

The facts of the case, to a certain extent, matter less now than perception and their potential effect.

Last December, De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer urged President Festus Mogae to reconsider its resettlement policies, citing concern over the potential effect on the image of diamonds.

Both sides have vowed to appeal the court's decision in December, prolonging the bitter fight.