Botswana Bushman court case

[Meijin]

Some of you may know that the San (Bushmen) of Botswana have been fighting their government's attempts to displace them from ancestral homelands - this is because of the diamond mines that the government, along with DeBeers, wish to 'develop'. The racialism of the Botswana government has also been used to justify 'developing' the San in Botswana.

Survival International are helping the San to fight their court case which is now reaching it's final stages after a break of months. If you wish to help the San fight this case you can make a donation to Survival International:
www.Survival-International.org.uk. They need these funds to fight this campaign and have been told by a benefactor that s/he will meet any donation pound for pound - meaning for every £1 you donate the benefactor will match this...

You can also write in english to the government of Botswana (english is one of the state languages) - like Amnesty International, letter-writing campaigns can prove very effective in achieving land rights for indigenous and tribal peoples - more details are available on Survival's website.

 

[Ben3rdEye]

It is why it's so peaceful there.
San have little spears and lots of stones and don't sign agreements.
San got moved around a lot - found out later they were living on diamond grounds.
San got zero - they were offered cattle-which is an insult since they do not herd animals.
Botswana has the strongest currency in the region.
The govt. want to move them out the Kalahari Park as well.
White germans own vast areas of their landscape too. African herders don't see it as their land-saying they were always there too. Difficult arguement.
Gaborone has probably the highest ratio of new cars to citizens (excluding) San than anywhere in Africa-probably the world.

:punk:

 

[Meijin]

Yeah Subbie - I've read Laurens Van der Post's book about his life in the bush of ghosts with the San in SA - they got displaced there by the Bantu a few hundred years before the white settlers got their 'share'... but the thing is that this case SHOULD be a testcase and Survival have been very successful in the past in other states - if the San lose this land they feel that extreme poverty and dislocation will inevitably follow

As someone wrote recently: if we want a world without borders then we must support the tribal and pastoral peoples of this world who through their actions protect the earth