What about our rights? Settlements, subsistence and livelihood security among Central Kalahari San and Bakgalagadi

Abstract

The San of Botswana have had to cope with government policies, including ones aimed at assimilation and sedentarisation which had significant impacts on their subsistence and social security. In response, San and non-government organisations working with them attempted to draw on the international discourse on indigenous peoples' rights in their efforts to assert their rights. This paper examines the background and implications of a legal case brought by San and Bakgalagadi residents of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve against the government of Botswana for the relocation of people outside of the reserve and the cessation of services and water provision. While the government of Botswana argues that the most effective strategy to deal with rural, disadvantaged peoples is to establish settlements for them to provide services, questions are raised concerning the viability of this approach.

Beetle and plant arrow poisons of the Ju|’hoan and Hai||om San peoples of Namibia (Insecta, Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae; Plantae, Anacardiaceae, Apocynaceae, Burseraceae)

“…They live nowadays in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana. Both groups have been the subject of forced evictions after the Botswana government removed them from the Central Kalahari in 1997 and in 2002 (Hitchcock et al 2011). Modern G|ui and G||ana, have become progressively more sedentary (Osaki 1984, 2001; Ikeya 2001; Tanaka 2014).…”

“Bushmen” in the Law: Evidence and Identity in Botswana's High Court

“…The government had been providing services to the communities inside the reserve since the 1970s, but wanted to discontinue them for reasons of “cost” and the supposed negative impact on wildlife of concentrated populations (Sapignoli ). Government officials took up the idea of a relocation policy not only for reasons of wildlife conservation (Owens and Owens ) but also based on the premise that the people of the Central Kalahari were no longer “traditional.” They also argued that having all of the people from the reserve grouped in several locations outside of it would facilitate the provision of development assistance and social services including water, health care, and education, and thereby allow the people of the CKGR “to enter the mainstream” of the nation (Hitchcock, Sapignoli, and Babchuk ; Saugestad ). Some NGO representatives saw the diamond mining that was occurring in the reserve as the government's central motive for forcing the residents to relocate (Good ; Solway ).…”

Essentialism and the Indigenous Politics of Recognition in Southern Africa

“…San were promised money, livestock, plots of land, and access to services as compensation for leaving the reserve. Three waves of forced removals in 1997, 2002, and 2005 ultimately relocated over 2,000 San from the CKGR to the settlements of New Xade and Kaudwane outside the reserve (Hitchcock et al :69; Saugestad :41). During the 2002 removals, the borehole at the settlement of Mothomelo was sealed, and government officials destroyed all vessels that could carry water (Hitchcock et al :73).…”