Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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August 23, 2007

Rights Group Likens Bushmen Plight to Slavery
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=18E880E:A6F02AD83191E160760F04FF86D17AF09574F7DCC14957C0 Survival
International report cites prejudice against tribal and indigenous
peoples The human rights group Survival International released a new
report Thursday





comparing the situation of Botswana’s Bushmen to the trans-Atlantic
slave trade. The report is being issued to mark the UN Day for the
Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. 

The report says the same arguments used to defend slavery “bear a
striking similarity” to those used to justify the eviction of the
Bushmen from their ancestral lands.







Bushmen, Botswana. Photo - Survival Int'lThe Gana and Gwi Bushmen were
relocated from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002. Last
December, they won a court case to return to their lands. However, the
government says only those named in the lawsuit, several hundred,
should be allowed to return. Those who have returned accuse the
government of preventing them from hunting, bringing in goats or using
a nearby borehole for water.

Survival International Director Stephen Corry says there’s a worldwide
prejudice against “tribal and indigenous people.”

“It’s very clear that there’s an attitude that they are somehow
inferior, that they need to catch up, that they are uncivilized. They
need to be civilized. And this is exactly the same thing which was
said about the slave trade 200 years ago. I mean I think it is very
easy to forget that the slave trade had a lot of defenders. People who
were arguing that it benefited and helped civilize Africans. And
that’s a direct quote from somebody in 1774,” he says.

Corry says that the government is using old arguments in its
relocation of the Bushmen.

“The Botswanan government thinks their way of life is inferior. It
sees them as hunter-gatherers, who should stop being hunter-gatherers
and should, as it were, join the mainstream of society,” he says.

The Botswanan government has said the Bushmen would benefit by leaving
game reserve by having better access to water, social and educational
services. A government document says a fund has been set up to provide
training and help for Bushmen who want to start small businesses. The
government also says it wants to raise their standard of living and
avoid land-use conflicts in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as a
result of agriculture and livestock.

Corry says the quality of life and health of the relocated Bushmen has
deteriorated sharply. He says that you cannot use force to relocate
indigenous people “without damaging them very severely.”

“Wherever there are tribal peoples still living in a way which they
wish to live, the dominant societies often regard it as inferior and
want to stop it, not least and generally because they want their land.
That’s what it usually boils down to,” he says.

The Botswanan government, however, is quoted as saying it wants to
bring the Bushmen into “the mainstream society without any detriment
to their unique culture and tradition." The country’s foreign minister
was quoted in 2001 as saying, “It would be grossly irresponsible if we
didn’t expose them to modern day culture.” 





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