<p>Your support is vital if the Bushmen are to survive. There are many ways you can help. </p><ul class="actionlinks"><li><a href="/actnow/writealetter/bushmen" onclick="new Effect.BlindDown('embedded_letter_bushmen'); new Effect.ScrollTo('embedded_letter_bushmen_container', {offset: -24}); return false;">Writing a letter to the Botswana government</a> is a quick and simple way to let them know of your concern.</li><li><a href="../../../../../how_to_help.php?howto_help_id=1">Donate to the Bushman campaign</a> (and other Survival campaigns).</li><li><a href="http://www.writetothem.com/">Write to your MP or MEP</a> (UK) or <a href="http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/">Senators and members of Congress</a> (US).</li><li>Write to your <a href="http://www.embassiesabroad.com/">local Botswana high commission or embassy</a>.</li><li>If you want to get more involved, <a href="../../../../../contact.php">contact Survival…</a></li><li>Visit the <a href="http://www.iwant2gohome.org/">Bushmen’s own website…</a></li></ul>
D2CAF1
Botswana government targets Bushman hunters
true
The Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve have been forced from their ancestral lands in a wave of evictions by the Botswana government. In 2006 they won an historic legal victory when Botswana's High Court ruled that their eviction was 'unlawful and unconstitutional'.
Since then the government has arrested more than 50 Bushmen for hunting to feed their families, and banned the Bushmen from using their water borehole.
Hundreds still languish in resettlement camps, unable or scared to return home.
The Bushmen are the indigenous people of southern Africa. They have experienced a genocide which has been almost completely ignored; having once occupied the whole of southern Africa, just 100,000 remain today. Most have lost their land to white or Bantu colonists.
<p> --START BUSHMEN-- </p><p>In the middle of Botswana lies the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a reserve created to protect the traditional territory of the 5,000 Gana, Gwi and Tsila Bushmen (and their neighbours the Bakgalagadi), and the game they depend on. </p><p>In the early 1980s, diamonds were discovered in the reserve. Soon after, government ministers went into the reserve to tell the Bushmen living there that they would have to leave because of the diamond finds.</p> <p> In three big clearances, in 1997, 2002 and 2005, virtually all the Bushmen were forced out. Their homes were dismantled, their school and health post were closed, their water supply was destroyed and the people were threatened and trucked away. </p> <p>They now live in resettlement camps outside the reserve. Rarely able to hunt, and arrested and beaten when they do, they are dependent on government handouts. They are now gripped by alcoholism, boredom, depression, and illnesses such as TB and HIV/AIDS. </p> <p>Unless they can return to their ancestral lands, their unique societies and way of life will be destroyed, and many of them will die. </p><p>--END BUSHMEN-- </p><p>--START COURT CASE-- </p><p>STOP PRESS: 13 December 2006: The Bushmen today won an historic victory. The judges ruled that their eviction by the government was 'unlawful and unconstitutional', and that they have the right to live inside the reserve, on their ancestral land. <br /> <br />The court also ruled that the Bushmen have the right to hunt and gather in the reserve, and should not have to apply for permits to enter it. <a href="../../../../../news.php?id=2128">More on this landmark ruling.</a> </p><span style="text-align: center"><hr style="height: 1px; width: 75%; color: #222222" /></span><p>Since their eviction the Bushmen have taken the government to court. They want the court to rule that their eviction is illegal. </p><p>Although the Bushmen are Botswana's poorest citizens, the case has turned into the longest and most expensive in the country's history.</p> <p>The case was filed in 2002, but the first evidence was not heard until 2004.</p> <p>239 Bushman adults put their names to the case. Since then, another 135 adults have asked to be added to it. Together with their children, they represent around 1,000 people.</p> <p>Of the original 239 Bushmen pursuing the case, 12% have died awaiting justice.</p> <p>While the case has been going on, many Bushmen have tried to return to their homeland in the reserve. Nearly all have been evicted again by the government. 72 Bushmen have been arrested for hunting to feed their families, and 44 have been beaten or tortured.</p> <p>The key clause protecting Bushman rights in Botswana's constitution has been removed by the government while the case has been in progress.</p> <p>Through the generosity of its supporters, Survival has been helping the Bushmen bring their case.</p><p> --END COURT CASE-- </p><p>--START DIAMONDS-- </p><p>The Bushmen, Survival and many other observers believe that the Bushmen have been evicted because their land is rich in diamonds. </p><p> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="250" style="float: right; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.4em"> <tbody><tr> <td> <img style="border: 1px solid #000000" src="../../../../../files/mediabox/tribal_world/bushmen/gope_village.jpg" alt="Bushmen at Gope before being evicted" width="250" height="162" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="font-size: 1em; margin-top: 4px; color: #666666">Bushmen at Gope before being evicted </td> </tr> </tbody></table>Their reserve lies in the middle of the richest diamond-producing area in the world. There is known to be at least one major diamond deposit in the reserve, at a Bushman community called Gope. Many other ‘kimberlites’ (volcanic rock in which diamonds are found) are present in the reserve.</p> <p>All Botswana’s diamond mines are operated by De Beers in a 50:50 partnership with the government. De Beers hold a licence to ‘retain’ the Gope deposit, and have said they plan to mine it in the future. There is an active search under way for more deposits.</p> <p> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="250" style="float: right; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.4em"><tbody><tr> <td> <img style="border: 1px solid #000000" src="../../../../../files/mediabox/tribal_world/bushmen/gope_mine.jpg" alt="The test diamond mine at Gope" width="250" height="163" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="font-size: 1em; margin-top: 4px; color: #666666">The test diamond mine at Gope</td> </tr></tbody></table>De Beers and the Botswana government are so intimately linked that the President has described them as ‘Siamese twins’. De Beers’s local managing director backed the Bushmen’s forced removal.</p> <p>Other companies are also involved. Petra Diamonds is exploring throughout the reserve and has identified the Gope and Kukama areas – two former Bushman villages – as priorities.</p> <p>The Bushmen have appealed to the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, star of the new film ‘Blood Diamond’, for help, through a full-page advert in Variety magazine.</p> <p>Many celebrities and supermodels have backed the Bushmen’s campaign.</p> <h2 class="tribeHome">More information</h2> <ul class="arrowlinks"><li><strong><a href="../../../../../related_material.php?id=511">The Bushmen of Gope</a></strong> <br />Background information about the former Bushman community of Gope, in the CKGR.</li> <li><strong><a href="../../../../../related_material.php?id=512">The Bushmen and conflict diamonds</a></strong> <br />A factsheet on the Bushmen and Botswana's conflict diamonds</li> <li><strong><a href="../../../../../files/related_material/11_513_969_diamonds_facts.pdf">Bushmen aren't forever</a></strong> (PDF, 15 pages) <br />This factsheet, subtitled <em>Botswana: diamonds in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the eviction of Bushmen</em>, explains the issues surrounding the eviction of the Bushmen from the CKGR in detail.</li> </ul><p> --END DIAMONDS--</p><p> --START ACT NOW-- </p><p>Your support is vital if the Bushmen are to survive. There are many ways you can help. </p><ul class="actionlinks"><li><a href="../../../../../how_to_help.php?howto_help_id=48">Writing a letter to the Botswana government</a> is a quick and simple way to let them know of your concern.</li><li><a href="../../../../../how_to_help.php?howto_help_id=1">Donate to the Bushman campaign</a> (and other Survival campaigns).</li><li><a href="http://www.writetothem.com/">Write to your MP or MEP</a> (UK) or <a href="http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/">Senators and members of Congress</a> (US).</li><li>Write to your <a href="http://www.embassiesabroad.com/">local Botswana high commission or embassy</a>.</li><li>There is a campaign to <a href="http://www.boycottdebeers.com/">boycott De Beers…</a></li><li><a href="../../../../../how_to_help.php?howto_help_id=27">Add your name</a> to the 100,000 people who have already signed Survival’s Bushman petition.</li><li>If you want to get more involved, <a href="../../../../../contact.php">contact Survival…</a></li><li>Visit the <a href="http://www.iwant2gohome.org/">Bushmen’s own website…</a></li></ul> --END ACT NOW--
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The Bushmen are the indigenous people of southern Africa. They have experienced a genocide which has been almost completely ignored; having once occupied the whole of southern Africa, just 100,000 remain today. Most have lost their land to white or Bantu colonists.
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the Bushmen
http://bit.ly/YRbV7
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<a href='http://www.tribalchannel.tv/'><img src="/lib/img/content/tv_icon1.jpg" width="90" height="57" alt="" /></a><div class="frontpage-tv-text"><h4><a href='http://www.tribalchannel.tv/'>From the Kalahari to Court</a></h4>
<div class="desc"> The Bushmen's historic court victory <a class="watch"href="#">Watch »</a></div></div>
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Bushmen
2009-05-29T17:53:37+01:00