Twenty years after Bushmen first petition
UN, abuse continues
On March 27 1996, Roy
Sesana (pictured) and John Hardbattle brought
their people's plight to the UN for the
first time.
© Livia
Monami/Survival March
27 will mark twenty years since the Central
Kalahari Bushmen first brought their plight to
the UN.
In
2006 Botswana’s
own High Court ruled that the Bushmen had been
evicted from their ancestral homelands in the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve “wrongfully and
unlawfully and without their consent.”
Today
the government claims that only the small number
of Bushmen named in court papers have the right to
return home. In a system that has been compared to
apartheid-era
“pass laws,” it now forces their children and
close relatives to apply for permits just to visit
them, or risk seven years in prison.
The
government was asked to “clarify
the matter” in 2014 by UN Special rapporteur
on cultural rights Farida Shaheed. Shaheed had
found that “the fear amongst affected people is
that once the elders have passed away, nobody will
be entitled to live in the reserve.”
Earlier
this month, Botswana’s Foreign Minister reportedly
told the UN Human Rights Council that Shaheed’s
observations were “inconsistent with the
relocation and the ruling on the CKGR case. The Government did
not forcefully relocate Basarwa from the CKGR.”
When they turn 18,
Bushmen children are forced to apply for one-month
permits to visit their parents in the reserve, or
risk 7 years in prison
© Lottie
Davies/Survival Concerns
have been raised by several parts of the UN for
well over a decade, including two UN Special
Rapporteurs on the rights of indigenous peoples,
the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food,
the Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, the Human Rights Committee and the
Human Rights Council.
The
US
State Department and African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights have
both repeatedly urged the government to fully
implement the court ruling.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said today: “Botswana’s
government thinks it can lie about the misery it
has inflicted on the Bushmen, but the court
judgment is clear. We hope President Khama will
mark Botswana’s
50th year of independence by finally listening
to the Bushmen, the UN and, crucially, to his own
High Court. This is of huge importance, both for
the survival of the Bushmen and for all those who
care about democracy and the rule of law in
Botswana.”
Timeline:
Botswana criticized at the UN
March
27, 1996: Bushmen spokesmen John
Hardbattle and Roy Sesana addressed the UN
Commission on Human Rights in Geneva about the
problems facing their people. John Hardbattle died
later that year, on November 11.
In
2002,
UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous
peoples Rodolfo Stavenhagen visited a resettlement
camp and found that the Bushmen were victims of
“discriminatory practices,” and were being
“dispossessed of their traditional lands.”
Later
in 2002,
the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination expressed concern at the “ongoing
dispossession of Basarwa/San people from their
land.”
Over
the next years, Stavenhagen and the Committee
continued to raise the Bushmen’s plight with the
government. In 2005
Stavenhagen expressed “his deep concern about the
forcible relocation of hundreds of Bushmen far
from their traditional homes and hunting grounds
in the Central Kalahari.” He also noted that the
Botswana government had not responded to his
comments. The government later
imposed restrictions on Stavenhagen travelling
to Botswana.
In
2005
and 2006,
the Committee questioned the Botswana delegation
to the UN over the government’s treatment of the
Bushmen.
In
2007,
Stavenhagen’s successor, James Anaya, and UN
Special Rapporteur on the right to food Jean
Ziegler wrote to the Botswana government. They had
found that the High Court decision was still not
being implemented, and that as a result the
Bushmen “kept facing numerous impediments in the
effective enjoyment of their rights over their
traditional lands and resources.”
In
2008,
the UN Human Rights Committee urged Botswana to
ensure that “all persons who were relocated are
granted the right to return to
the CKGR (Central Kalahari Game
Reserve).”
In
2009,
the UN Human Rights Council carried out a review
of Botswana, in which Finland urged Botswana to
“ensure respect for the rights of the indigenous
people living in the areas of interest to
companies active in the diamond business,” and
Denmark urged them to “provide access to land and
support for the residents of the reserve, as
specified in the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous people.”
In
2010
Anaya slammed the government’s refusal to let the
Bushmen draw water on their land, saying that as a
result they “face harsh and dangerous conditions.”
He urged the government to “fully and faithfully
implement” the 2006 High Court ruling and
facilitate “the return of all those removed from
the reserve who wish to do so, allowing them to
engage in subsistence hunting and gathering in
accordance with traditional practices, and
providing them the same government services
available to Botswanans elsewhere, including, most
immediately, access to water.”
Also
in 2010,
the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination wrote to the Botswana government,
saying that: “In 2006 the High Court of Law ruled
that their eviction was unlawful and
unconstitutional… The Committee is concerned about
the alleged lack of implementation of the High
Court of Law’s decision.”
In
2013,
during the Universal Periodic Review of Botswana
at the UN, the United States expressed “concern at
a narrow interpretation by the High Court, which
prevented hundreds of [Bushmen] from living and
hunting on their ancestral lands,” and the United
Kingdom called the progress in negotiations
between the Botswana government and the Kalahari
Bushmen a “matter of
urgency.” Recommendations regarding
Botswana’s treatment of the Bushmen were also made
by Ireland, Norway, Spain, Mexico, Finland and
Congo.
In
2014,
UN Special Rapporteur on cultural rights Farida
Shaheed visited the reserve and noted that, “The
fear amongst affected people is that once the
elders have passed away, nobody will be entitled
to live in the reserve. Furthermore, insisting
that people relocate outside the reserve for
wildlife conservation purposes is at odds with
allowing the continuation of mining and tourism
activities.”
Shaheed
asked the government to “clarify the matter.”
Earlier this month Botswana’s Foreign Secretary
reportedly told the UN Human Rights Council that
“the observations by the Special Rapporteur are
inconsistent with the relocation and the ruling on
the CKGR case. The
Government did not forcefully relocate Basarwa
from the CKGR.” Yet this
ruling unequivocally established that the Bushmen
had been evicted “wrongfully and unlawfully and
without their consent.”
In
2015, Bushmen spokesman Jumanda
Gakelebone voiced his concerns about Botswana’s
hunting ban at a meeting of the United Nations
Permanent Fund for Indigenous Issues. Botswana’s
High Court ruled that banning the Bushmen in the
reserve from hunting was “tantamount to condemning
[them] to death.”
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11189
| 
