AP News, December 13th, 2006
Botswana's High Court on Wednesday ruled that the country's Bushmen were entitled to live and hunt on their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, in judgment hailed as victory for the hunters.
But the three-member court said the government was not obliged to provide basic services like water to anyone returning to the reserve. And it said the decision to cut off the services was neither "unlawful nor unconstitutional."
The longest running and most emotive legal case in the southern African nation's history pits government claims that it wants to protect wildlife against the Basarwas' insistence that hunger for the diamonds and minerals hidden beneath the sands are the real reason.
The court said that the Bushmen were "forcibly and wrongly deprived of their possessions," by the government.
It said the state's refusal to issue special game licenses to allow the Bushmen to hunt was "unlawful" and "unconstitutional."
It also said the refusal to allow the Bushmen into the game reserve without a permit was "unlawful and unconstitutional."
Backed by British-based Survival International, the Bushmen had accused the government of accusing it of evicting them illegally in order to exploit the diamond and mineral potential of the vast area.
The government denies this, saying the Bushmen agreed to move as part of efforts to make the Central Kalahari a game reserve. It says they received compensation for their land.
Most of the Bushmen have moved to two new settlements. Government authorities say their living conditions have improved, with the provision of drinking water, schools and medical facilities.
But Bushmen representatives argue that they have suffered from the disruption to their traditional way of life and have fallen victim to scourges like alcoholism and HIV/AIDS.
At least 12 percent of the original 239 applicants have since died in government resettlement camps, Survival International said. This year, 135 more applicants asked to be added to the original petition.
