Bushmen - Ancestral Land Conflict With Botswana

Ancestral Land Conflict With Botswana

Since the mid 1990s, the central government of Botswana has implemented a relocation policy, aiming to move the Bushmen out of their ancestral land on the Central Kalahari Game Reserve into newly created settlements. Although the government has categorically denied that relocation has been forced, a recent court ruling confirmed that the removal was unconstitutional and residents were forcibly removed.

The government's official reasons for adopting the policy is:

"Over time it has become clear that many residents of the CKGR already were or wished to become settled agriculturists, raising crops and tending livestock as opposed to hunting-gathering when the reserve was established in 1961. "In fact, hunting-gathering had become obsolete to sustain their living conditions. These agricultural land uses are not compatible with preserving wildlife resources and not sustainable to be practiced in the Game Reserve. "This is the fundamental reason for government to relocate the CKGR residents."

Opponents to the relocation policy claim that the government's intent is to clear the area – an area the size of Denmark — for the lucrative tourist trade and diamond mining. This is strenuously denied on the government's official web site, stating that although exploration had taken place, it concluded that mining activity would not be viable and that the issue was not related to the relocation policy.

It is further claimed that the group as a whole has little voice in the national political process and is not one of the tribal groups recognized in the constitution of Botswana. Over the generations, the Bushmen of Southern Africa have continued to be absorbed into the African population, particularly the Griqua sub-group, which is an Afrikaans-speaking people of predominantly Khoisan that has certain unique cultural markers which set them apart from other Africans.