Botswana: Laureates appeal to President over Bushmen

By Henry Neondo

Over 30 laureates of the Right Livelihood Award, known as the ‘alternative Nobel Prize’, have signed an open letter to President Ian Khama of Botswana urging him to allow the Bushmen access to water.

The laureates express concern for the welfare of the Bushmen of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, who have been banned from accessing a well which they rely on for water.

“Without access to water, a fundamental human right’, the letter says, ‘they are struggling to sustain their way of life on their ancestral lands”.

In 2002, the Bushmen were evicted from their lands by the Botswana government and dumped in resettlement camps outside the reserve. With Survival International's help they took the government to court, and four years later won a landmark High Court ruling declaring their right to live in the reserve. In 2005, the Bushmen’s organization, First People of the Kalahari, was awarded an ‘alternative Nobel Prize’ for their struggle for their rights.

Despite the ruling, the government refuses to allow the Bushmen to recommission a well, which it sealed and capped during the 2002 evictions, forcing the Bushmen to make arduous journeys to fetch water from outside the reserve. At the same time, it has drilled new wells for wildlife and allowed Wilderness Safaris to build a luxury tourist lodge with a swimming pool on Bushman land. In the near future it is also likely to issue a licence for a diamond mine on Bushman land, for which new wells will be drilled, on condition that the mine will not provide water to the Bushmen.

In July, a High Court judge dismissed the Bushmen’s application for permission to use the well, expressing sympathy for the government’s argument that the Bushmen have ‘brought upon themselves any discomfort they may endure’.  

Bushman spokesperson, Jumanda Gakelebone, said: “We are grateful to all the laureates for helping us. Khama should know that a lot of human rights activists all over the world are watching”.

The appeal to the President comes as world experts arrive in Stockholm for World Water Week, and ahead of the Right Livelihood Award conference in Bonn, 14-19th September. It follows the UN’s adoption of water as a human right in July.

Describing the government’s actions as ‘inexcusable’, the laureates’ letter urges it to ‘allow the Bushmen access to water on their lands, and work with them to ensure a sustainable future for everyone’.