28 May 2023
The Indigenous World 2023 report for Botswana by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs has detailed numerous human rights issues that affect Basarwa.
First on the list is the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Review of the Constitution. The report says the Commission’s 19 members discussed the rights of the “Basarwa… at length but the Commission made no recommendations specifically related to these people.”
With regard to Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), the report says while discussions were ongoing about devising an enhanced CBNRM policy, many existing community trusts and community-based organisations that have rights to wildlife were finding themselves in difficulty, particularly since tourism declined so precipitously during the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of these belong to Indigenous Peoples.
“At least half a dozen community trusts in North West District (Ngamiland) and Ghanzi District, all of them San-dominated, were taken over by private safari companies, resulting in a reduction in benefits and incomes for Indigenous community trust members,” the report says.
The report further says; “Some of these trusts wanted to file grievances with the government but the Grievance Redress Mechanism that was supposed to have been designed in 2022 was yet to be in place by the end of the year.”
Also on the list of the organisation’s concerns, the report noted, was; “The number of arrests of members of Indigenous communities for contravening wildlife conservation laws declined in 2022 but six San children were arrested in the CKGR in July by Department of Wildlife and National Parks game scouts for being in possession of wild game meat.”
The report says after losing a series of court cases brought by the residents of the reserve, several hundred people were allowed to return although they were not able to access government services or to receive health assistance, food commodities, or educational opportunities for their children inside the Central Kalahari. Some residents of the reserve refused to leave the CKGR. One of these individuals, Pitseng Gaoborekwe, became ill and his family moved him to New Xade, one of the resettlement sites outside of the Central Kalahari boundaries. Unfortunately, he did not recover and passed away on 21 December 2021. His body was placed in a mortuary in the district capital of Ghanzi.
Gaoberekwe’s three children, Lesiame, Keitatotse and Dikakanyetso, sought to have his body returned to Metsiamonong for burial but the Ghanzi District Council, and later the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP), denied the request, demanding that the family bury him in New Xade. When the family refused, they received a court order on 9 March 2022 telling them to conduct the burial outside of the Reserve within seven days.
The report says coincidentally, during the time the appeal was being heard in court in Botswana, several Botswana officials were in Geneva participating in hearings held by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The UN Committee expressed its regret that;
“…those groups who were not party to the Roy Sesana and others v. Attorney General case have not been allowed to return to the Reserve to settle there. Furthermore, the report says, those who are allowed to return must obtain a permit in advance and encounter difficulties in resuming and conducting their traditional activities.”
The report goes on to urge the State party: to fully implement the High Court’s decision in [the Sesana case], by allowing all ethnic groups originating from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to return and settle there unconditionally. The Committee also recommends that the State party provide them with effective access to basic social services and enable them to resume their traditional activities without hindrance.
“After the appeal was denied, the family agreed on an approach to the burial that would satisfy official demands. Smith Moeti sent a letter to the Attorney General stating that the family would not resist the government’s burial of their father in New Xade, but they would not participate in it,” the report says.
He wrote: In a nutshell, the government of Botswana has all along wanted to bury Pitseng Gaoberekwe at New Xade, and their courts granted the government her wish, and the family of Gaoberekwe shall not partake in the burial of their father in New Xade or anywhere else, except the CKGR.
The family is considering taking the matter to a higher court such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, or the UN.
By year end, Pitseng Gaoberekwe’s body still remained in the mortuary in Ghanzi.
Source: https://www.sundaystandard.info/indigenous-communities-given-a-raw-deal-report/
