African Hunter – Gatherers Bring Land Fight to U.S.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – African hunter-gatherers who the Botswana government has ousted from their traditional lands brought their cause to Washington on Friday, seeking support in a battle they say revolves around diamond wealth.
Bushman elder Roy Sesana, wearing a headdress of beads and antelope horns, told a news conference the Botswana government had forced his people from their territory in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve because it wanted to make the land available for diamond mining.
“I was told this by three ministers. They told me we have to move because we cannot stay where there are mines,” Sesana said through an interpreter. “I said, ‘The diamonds are the remains of our ancestors.”’
An official of the Botswana Embassy in Washington, John Moreti, who was in the audience, took issue with Sesana. “There are certainly no plans to do a diamond mine in the area,” he said.
“My question is, how many Basarwa (Bushmen) does Roy represent? I think he represents 1 percent.”
“I represent all the Bushmen,” Sesana replied.
The Gaborone government has relocated about 2,500 Bushmen over the past 18 months from the desert game reserve, which is about the size of Switzerland, into resettlement camps where it says they can be better integrated into mainstream society.
The Bushmen are descended from the earliest inhabitants of southern Africa but have been driven from most of their original territory by black pastoral tribes — like the present rulers of Botswana — and white settlers.
These are the descendents of us all.