Human Rights Groups Says Tourism Site Would Get Water but not Botswana Bushmen

Emily Mader/25 April 2008/2:42 pm/Human Rights

In 2002, Bushmen of Botswana were evicted from their traditional lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in what the government calls an effort to give them access to health care and social services. The Bushmen filed suit against the government and were allowed to move back onto their lands, but they have been denied the rights to access water and hunt in the area. An interesting development in this case is that the Botswana government offered a tender of land to the South African tourist group Safari & Adventure Company. The tourist lodge the company proposes to build will require water not only for the tourists but also to create water holes to attract wildlife. The Botswana government at the same time denies the Bushmen the right to dig for water on their lands citing conservation as the reason. Survival International, a group advocating the rights of the Bushmen, states that this denial of access to both food and water violates not only international law but also the laws of the Botswana government.

This is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot imagine that a small group of Bushmen would sap the area of all its water resources while a tourist lodge would not. I feel that the motives of the government to get the Bushmen off of their traditional lands has very little to do with providing them with better social services. The fact that the government openly accepts the tourism industry in the area hints at a hidden motivation: maybe the government really wants the Bushmen off of those lands so they can be developed for ecotourism or some other form of money-generating enterprises.

http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-04-25-voa32.cfm