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BOTSWANA: Basarwa said to be returning to old homes

JOHANNESBURG, 13 September (IRIN) - Groups of Botswana's Gana and Gwi Bushmen, also known as the Basarwa, were reported to be returning to their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in defiance of government attempts at forcing them to settle elsewhere.

Over the past few weeks people had been seen transporting water, goats and personal items back to their original homes at Molapo village, where they had lived until their evictions in 1997, Mathambo Ngakaeaja, co-ordinator of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities of Southern Africa said.

Ngakaeaja told IRIN: "Their connection and relationship with the land is so significant and very important. They have big ties that they don't want to lose."

Since 1997 the government has moved several hundred people from Molapo and Old Xade to be resettled in camps in Kaudwane and New Xade. A small number of people have remained in the reserve, refusing to leave, even though their water supplies had been cut off.

Lobbyists believe they are being removed to protect the government and De Beers' diamond mining rights in the reserve from possible claims, but the government says it was done to provide better facilities to the communities.

"They are living in abject poverty at the resettlement camps," Ngakaeaua said. "They have no jobs and rely 100 percent on their government compensation, which is running out.

"They were not used to large sums of cash and misused the payouts. Very few people have a meaningful life in the resettlement camps. They have food problems and the land is not as fertile. None of the government's promises materialised," he said.

Ngakaeaja said the police had set up roadblocks at Old Xade and were stopping returnees on minor traffic violations and sending them to nearby Ghanzi to resolve the violations.

The government ministry responsible for the issue was not available for comment on Friday.

Miriam Ross, spokeswoman for awareness group Survival International said that the Basarwa were also concerned that they were no longer able to hunt and felt they were reliant on government "handouts".

"Very few are working. Some have found work in small workshops or menial labour," she said.

Ngakaeaja said a delegation of NGOs and lawyers would visit the resettlement camps over the next few weeks in preparation for the next stage of a court challenge to their removal. During those visits people would be selected to give oral testimony.

This follows the dismissal of an earlier court challenge.

For more details: http://www.san.org.za/wimsa/wimsabody.htm
http://www.survival-international.org/bushman.htm#
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