We are the First People': Land, Natural Resources and Identity in the Central Kalahari, Botswana

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'We are the First People':Land, Natural Resourcesand Identity in the CentralKalahari, BotswanaRobert K. HitchcockPublished online: 04 Aug 2010.

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Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 28, Number 4, December 2002

‘We are the First People’: Land, NaturalResources and Identity in the CentralKalahari, Botswana*

ROBERT K. HITCHCOCK

(University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

This article focuses on the ways in which the San and another minority group, theBakgalagadi, have been treated over time in Botswana, with particular emphasis on thepeople residing in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the largest protected area in thecountry. It deals speci� cally with the roles of various institutions and individuals, includingthe Botswana government, advocacy groups, donors, community-based organisations and,importantly, the San and Bakgalagadi themselves, in promoting minority rights, especiallythose relating to land, natural resources and identity. Some San organisations, such asFirst People of the Kalahari, attempted to use the contentious issue of being ‘indigenous’as a means of arguing for rights to land and resources. In the end, efforts to promoteindigenous rights and the � ling of a legal land claim in the High Court were unsuccessfulin preventing the removals of people from their ancestral territories in the CentralKalahari. There are lessons here for indigenous peoples’ and minorities’ human rightsmovements in Africa, including the importance of building inter-group coalitions, the needto use diversi� ed strategies to achieve goals, the signi� cance of striking a balance betweenoutside assistance and working with local groups, and the value of mobilising people at thegrassroots over the long term.

IntroductionSome of the most contentious issues facing the Republic of Botswana today relate to thestatus and rights of indigenous and minority groups. The government claims that Botswanadoes not have indigenous minorities; it argues, rather, that all citizens of the country areindigenous.1 Those who claim indigenous identity, such as the San (Basarwa, Bushmen), onthe other hand, say that their status as ‘� rst nations’ or ‘aboriginal people’ should berecognised and that they should be treated in accordance with international standardspertaining to indigenous peoples.

The San are but one of a number of minority groups in Botswana and represent arelatively small minority, approximately 48,000 people in a national population of1,500,000 in 1999, roughly 3.3 per cent of the total.2 In many ways, they are at the bottom

* Support for the research upon which this paper is based was provided by the Remote Area DevelopmentProgramme (RADP) of Botswana, the United States Agency for International Development , and the InternationalWork Group for Indigenous Affairs. Valuable comments on this paper were provided by Richard Werbner, DianaVinding, Megan Biesele, Axel Thoma, Joram /Useb, Sidsel Saugestad, and two anonymous reviewers.

1 See S. Saugestad, ‘Botswana: the Inconvenient Indigenous Peoples’, Indigenous Affairs (1993/2), pp. 36–41; S.Saugestad, The Inconvenient Indigenous: Remote Area Development in Botswana, Donor Assistance, and theFirst People of the Kalahari (Uppsala, The Nordic Africa Institute, 2001), pp. 29–30, 32–34, 54; and thestatements in the Botswana parliament by the Minister of Local Government , Lands and Housing aboutBotswana’s policy on the issue of indigeneity, Botswana Daily News, 3 May 1993.

2 See J. Suzman, An Introduction to the Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa (Windhoek,Legal Assistance Centre, 2001), p. 4.

ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-3893 online/02/040797-28 Ó 2002 Journal of Southern African StudiesDOI: 10.1080/030570702200004352 0

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798 Journal of Southern African Studies

of the Botswana socio-economic system. A sizeable proportion lives below the povertydatum line. They exhibit some of the highest rates of infant mortality alongside the lowestliving standards and literacy rates, and in many cases have insecure access to land andresources.3

The issue of San land and resource rights in Botswana has loomed large, especiallysince the declaration of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy in 1975. This saw the zoning of landcategories in Botswana’s communal lands, the establishment of commercial leaseholdranches, and the dispossession of sizeable numbers of people, many of them San and otherresidents of cattle-posts.4 In response to changes in land tenure policy being recommendedin Botswana in the early to mid-1970s, San attempted to get the President, Sir SeretseKhama, to agree to give them secure access to land. In 1975–76, during the Tribal GrazingLand Policy consultation exercise, San from several areas in Botswana requested leaseholdrights over the land they occupied, and rights to subsistence hunting.5 As one San leaderput it, ‘Race and ethnicity became crucial issues for the Basarwa in the 1970s whenGovernment ruled against us on land rights. We knew we had to start to organise topromote our rights.’6

Over the past several decades, enormous transformations have occurred among the Sanand their neighbours in southern Africa.7 Most San live today in settled communities, manyof which contain a variety of different groups. Some San settlements were established at thebehest of government agencies such as the Ministry of Local Government, Lands andHousing in Botswana, and the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation inNamibia.8 San and other groups were moved out of national parks and conservation areas,farms, trek routes and mining areas (e.g. Orapa in Botswana) in the 1960s, 1970s and1980s. Today, sizeable numbers live on freehold farms in both Botswana and Namibia,working for farm owners or remaining as long as they are tolerated.9 Some San in Botswanareceive commodities and cash through various government livelihood support and labour-based rural development programmes, while elderly San in Namibia receive pensions.10

3 A series of reports on the status of San in southern Africa, edited by James Suzman and published by the LegalAssistance Centre in Namibia, contain detailed dataon San; and include associated reports on Botswana, Namibia,South Africa, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as an assessment of gender issues among San. For anoverview, see Suzman, An Introduction.

4 For a discussion of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy and related matters, see R. P. Werbner (ed), Land Reformin the Making: Tradition, Public Policy and Ideology in Botswana (London, Rex Collings, 1982); P. E. Peters,Dividing the Commons: Politics, Policy, and Culture in Botswana (Charlottesville and London, University ofVirginia Press, 1994); Chr. Michelsen Institute, NORAD’s Support of the Remote Area Development Program(RADP) in Botswana (Oslo, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1996), pp. 27–36 and Annex 5).

5 E. Wily, Of� cial Policy Towards San (Bushmen) Hunter–Gatherers in Modern Botswana: 1966–1978(Gaborone, National Institute of Research, 1979); R. Hitchcock, Monitoring, Research, and Development in theRemote Areas of Botswana (Gaborone, Ministry of Local Government and Lands, 1988); R. Hitchcock and R.Masilo, Subsistence Hunting and Resource Rights in Botswana (Gaborone, Department of Wildlife and NationalParks, 1995).

6 Interview by R. Hitchcock with a San leader in the north-eastern Kalahari region, 1978.7 See R. B. Lee, M. Biesele and R. K. Hitchcock, ‘Three Decades of Ethnographic Research among the Ju/’hoansi

of Northwestern Botswana: 1963–1996’, Botswana Notes and Records, 28 (1996), pp. 107–120; R. Hitchcock,Kalahari Communities: Bushmen and the Politics of the Environment in Southern Africa (Copenhagen,International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 1996).

8 See L. Cassidy, K. Good, I. Mazonde and R. Rivers, An Assessment of the Status of the San in Botswana(Windhoek, Legal Assistance Centre, 2001); J. Suzman, An Assessment of the Status of the San in Namibia(Windhoek, Legal Assistance Centre, 2001).

9 For discussions of San on freehold farms, see M. Russell, ‘Slaves or Workers? Relations between Bushmen,Tswana and Boers in the Kalahari’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 2, 2 (1976), pp. 178–197; M. Guenther,The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: Tradition and Change (Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag, 1986); R. Sylvain,‘Bushmen, Boers, and Baasskap: Patriarchy and Paternalism on Afrikaner Farms in the Omaheke Region,Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 27, 4 (2001), pp. 717–737.

10 Suzman, An Introduction; Cassidy et al., Assessment of the Status of the San in Botswana.

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Identity in the Central Kalahari 799

There are relatively few San, if any, in southern Africa today who derive their subsistenceand income from hunting and gathering, although a number of communities do depend onforaging as a buffering strategy and as a means of diversifying their diets.

The various San groups interact extensively with other groups, some of them minorities,and they have similar goals and objectives, including greater recognition for their rights, theopportunity to have a voice and participate in public policy formulation, and the chance topromote their own cultures, languages and identities. Like some of the other minoritygroups in Botswana, such as the Kalanga and the Yeyi, San have formed their ownnon-governmenta l organisations. These came together in 1996 under an umbrella organis-ation, the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA), whoseobjectives include promoting San land and resource rights, strengthening San leadership andinstitutions, and enhancing self-esteem and cultural pride among San.11

San Social Movements

There are some differences between the social movements involving the San and those ofother minority groups in Botswana. One relates to the fact that the San have intentionallyinternationalised their movement whereas other ethnic groups in Botswana have tended tofocus their attention more on issues at the national level. For the past decade, members ofSan organisations have travelled regularly to the meetings of the Working Group onIndigenous Populations of the United Nations, held in Geneva. San have held meetings withof� cials of the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank and variousgovernments, including Great Britain, the United States, South Africa, Norway, Sweden,and Denmark. They have forged links with indigenous peoples’ organisations in other partsof the world, such as the Saami Council (Scandinavia), the National Congress of AmericanIndians (the United States), and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission(Australia). Representatives of San groups have also attended international conferences onAfrican indigenous peoples in addition to ones targeted speci� cally on the San of SouthernAfrica.12

Another major difference between the San social movement and those, say, of theKalanga and Yeyi lies in the fact that the San have had substantial assistance from outsideBotswana, especially from indigenous peoples’ human rights’ organisations, researchers anddonors.13 Some San groups, including those most closely associated with the con� ict overthe future of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana, have made overtattempts to differentiate themselves from other minorities residing in the same areas. They

11 See the annual reports of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (1996–present); fora summary of WIMSA’s work, see M. Brormann, ‘WIMSA’, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 26, 1 (2002),pp. 45–47.

12 One such meeting was held in Tune, Denmark in 1993, and another in Arusha, Tanzania in 1999; see H. Veber,J. Dahl, F. Wilson and E. Waehle (eds), ‘Never Drink from the Same Cup’: Proceedings of the Conference onIndigenous Peoples in Africa, Tune, Denmark, 1993 (Copenhagen , International Work Group for IndigenousAffairs and the Center for Development Research, 1993); M. Jensen and J. Dahl, ‘Editorial’, Indigenous Affairs,2/99 (April–June 1999), pp. 2–3. The international San conferences were held in Windhoek, Namibia in June1992 and Gaborone, Botswana in October 1993.

13 Some of the international indigenous peoples’ human rights organisations that have assisted San include theInternational Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), based in Copenhagen, Denmark, SurvivalInternational, based in London, UK, and Cultural Survival, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Forinformation on the efforts of anthropologist s to assist in developmen t work among San, see R. Hitchcock,‘Anthropologica l Research and Remote Area Development among Botswana Basarwa’, in R. Hitchcock, N.Parsons and J. Taylor (eds), Research for Development in Botswana (Gaborone, Botswana Society, 1987),pp. 285–235; S. Saugestad, ‘“To Corner the Bushman Market”: Research Paradigms and the Use of Researchon the Indigenous Peoples of Botswana’, in I. Amundsen (ed), Knowledge and Development (Tromso, Universityof Tromso, 1994), pp. 295–312.

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did this in part, they said, because they perceived themselves as ethnically distinct and becausethey felt that they were competing with other groups for recognition and resources.14

As with many minorities, the San have had to struggle against what they view asdomination and discrimination from other groups and the nation-state. In recent years, thesestruggles have included efforts to hold on to their land and resources, assertions of theirdistinctive cultural identities and requests for education in mother-tongue languages.15 Inessence, the San are attempting to cope with what Richard Werbner has described as ‘theconstructive and destructive force that identity strategies have in contemporary Africa’.16

Since the mid-1980s, the San and another minority group, the Bakgalagadi, have beenengaged in a struggle for land and resource-rights in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve,a large protected area in central Botswana. This article examines the background and historyof the con� ict over the rights of the people whose ancestral territories include portions ofwhat is now the CKGR. It pays particular attention to the ways in which the people of theCentral Kalahari and their supporters positioned themselves to confront the Botswanagovernment and other institutions with designs on the region, including multinationalmining companies and environmental organisations.

The struggle over the Central Kalahari has taken on some of the characteristics of whatmight be described as an indigenous people’s social movement. At the same time, Sanorganisations and their supporters have tried to prevent what they saw as a planned andsystematic abrogation of their rights as citizens of a multicultural nation-state. They feltsuch steps were taken because of who they were – San, or ‘Masarwa’, as some highlyplaced political � gures sometimes called them. San tactics and activities might also suggesta movement involving an ethno-political group.17 This may help to explain why theBotswana government has taken such a strong stance against the activities of the organisa-tions attempting to prevent the CKGR resettlement.

A Brief History of San Human Rights IssuesHistorically, the San, like the Bakgalagadi, Yeyi, Pedi and some other minorities inBotswana, were seen as having few rights. In the nineteenth century, the San were classi� edby the Tswana as bolata (malata), sometimes translated as ‘serfs’ or ‘indentured servants’.They were required to provide goods and services to members of the Tswana elite andsometimes to other groups in the Kalahari and surrounding areas.18 In the past, the San had

14 See I. N. Mazonde, ‘The San in Botswana and the Issue of Subjectivities – National Disintegration or CulturalDiversity?’ in I. N. Mazonde (ed), Minorities in the Millennium: Perspectives from Botswana (Gaborone,University of Botswana, 2002), pp. 57–71, as well as some of the discussions at the Khoisan Identities andCultural Heritage Conference held at the South African Museum in Cape Town, 12–16 July 1997; and statementsby Aron Johannes of the WIMSA, and Roy Sesana, Mama Rampadi and Mogodu Mogodu of First People ofthe Kalahari.

15 See J. Hardbattle, ‘Did God Make a Mistake?’, Contact (Plenty Canada), 3, 4 (1993), pp. 1–3; A. Bank (ed),The Proceedings of the Khoisan Identities and Cultural Heritage Conference (Cape Town, South Africa:Infosource, 1998); A. J. G. M. Sanders (ed), Speaking for the Bushmen (Gaborone, Botswana Society, 1995);H. M. Batibo, ‘The Fate of the Minority Languages in Botswana’, in B. Smieja and M. Tasch (eds), HumanContact Through Language and Linguistics (Bern, Peter Lang, 1997), pp. 243–252; H. M. Batibo and B. Smieja(eds), Botswana: The Future of the Minority Languages (Bern, Peter Lang, 2000).

16 R. Werbner, ‘Introduction: Multiple Identities, Multiple Arenas’, in R. Werbner and T. Ranger (eds), PostcolonialIdentities in Africa (London, Zed Books, 1996), p. 23.

17 Ethnopolitical groups, for the purposes of this discussion, are identity groups whose ethnicity has politicalconsequences and who are involved in political action on behalf of a speci� c ethnic group; see T. R. Gurr, PeoplesVersus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century (Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace, 2000),pp. 5–13, 16–20.

18 See I. Schapera, The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa: Bushmen and Hottentots (London, Routledge and KeganPaul, 1930), pp. 233–234; I. Schapera, A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (London, Frank Cass, 1938),pp. 30–32, 66–68, 250–255; D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London, JohnMurray, 1857), p. 56.

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no voice in court, so they had nowhere to turn if they objected to how they were treated.19

There were instances in which San were taken forcibly from their homes and required towork for other people, often for little or no pay and, in some cases, physically mistreated.20

Numerous San statements indicate that they, their parents and grandparents sufferedindignities at the hands of other groups. San were removed from their ancestral territoriesand relocated elsewhere, as for example in the 1940s and early 1950s when Tyua from theNata River region were moved out of Crown Lands in northern Ngwato (Central) Districtand resettled south of the Nata River on tribal land.21 This decision was made after thedisappearance of two Royal Air Force pilots whose remains were never found but whosefate was believed by the Bechuanaland Protectorate Administration and the Bamangwato tobe associated with the actions of a group of Ganade Tyua led by a powerful traditionalhealer, Twai Twai Molele.22 The intense media coverage of the murder trial of Twai TwaiMolele and his co-defendants, which ended in an acquittal, intensi� ed the pressure to dealwith what had by then had become known as the ‘Masarwa problem’.23

The ‘Masarwa problem’ in part related to the ways in which San were perceived byother groups, and it was tied to the issue of slavery, or, as some people preferred to callit, ‘serfdom’.24 Some San described their hereditary servitude as different from thatexperienced by the Bakgalgadi who were, in some cases, residents of the same ruralvillages, lands areas and cattle-posts as the San. A few informants said that Bakglagadiwere given more opportunities to bene� t from ma� sa (long-term loan) cattle which theycould care for in exchange for their milk and draught power, the meat of cattle that died,and, in some cases, a calf per year.25

The Bakgalagadi, according to both San and Bakgalagadi informants, were distinct bothculturally and linguistically from the San. Bakgalagadi had greater internal social differen-tiation, with headmen (and sometimes headwomen) who had a fair amount of decision-mak-ing authority, hearing cases and doing dispute-resolution. The Bakgalagadi were morehierarchically organised, with village councils (dikgotla) in which major decisions weremade. Descent-reckoning among Bakgalagadi tended to be patrilineal, as opposed to themore loosely structured band organisation and bilateral inheritance systems of the San. Inaddition, Bakgalagadi had ‘home villages’ or places to which they had allegiance and wherethey maintained a residence.

Bakgalagadi spoke a language that was akin to Setswana, and thus they had a somewhat

19 There is a large literature on the issue of the treatment of San and other ‘subject peoples’ in Botswana; see, forexample, K. Datta and A. Murray, ‘The Rights of Minorities and Subject Peoples in Botswana: a HistoricalEvaluation’, in J. Holm and P. Molutsi (eds), Democracy in Botswana (Gaborone, Macmillan BotswanaPublishing Company, 1989), pp. 58–73.

20 See E. S. B. Tagart, Report on the Conditions Existing among Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve of theBechuanaland Protectorate and Certain Other Matters Appertaining to Natives Living Therein (Pretoria,Government Printer, 1933).

21 R. Hitchcock and F. M. Nangati, ‘People of the Two-Way River: Socioeconomic Change and Natural ResourcesManagement in the Nata River Region of Southern Africa’, Botswana Notes and Records, 32 (2000), pp. 1–21.

22 See Botswana National Archives (BNA) � les S.198/2, S.303/8/1, and S.218/3; R. Hitchcock, ‘Kuacaca: An EarlyCase of Ethnoarchaeology in the Northern Kalahari’, Botswana Notes and Records, 23 (1991), pp. 223–233.

23 This is the way issues relating to the San were described by some leading Ngwato, e.g. Lenyeletse Seretse,personal communication, 1976.

24 For a discussion of slavery in southern Africa, see E. Eldredge and F. Morton (eds), Slavery in South Africa:Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1994); T. Tlou, ‘Servility and PoliticalControl: Botlhanka among the BaTawana of North Western Botswana, ca. 1750–1906’, in S. Miers and I.Kopytoff (eds), Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropologica l Perspectives (Madison, University ofWisconsin Press, 1977), pp. 367–390; S. Miers and M. Crowder, ‘The Politics of Slavery in Bechuanaland: PowerStruggles and the Plight of the Basarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve, 1926–1940’, in S. Miers and R. Roberts(eds), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 172–200; BNA S.43/7,‘Slavery and Similar Conditions.’

25 R. Hitchcock, Kalahari Cattle Posts (Gaborone, Ministry of Local Government and Lands, 1978), p. 173.

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easier time interacting with Batswana. While Sekgalagadi is a minority language inBotswana and its speakers are widely dispersed in the country, they appear to have hadsomewhat greater success in maintaining their language than is the case with many Sanlanguage speakers. As one Mokgalagadi put it in an interview in the Western CentralDistrict in 1976, ‘Our language is considered by us and others to be of higher status thanmost of the San languages in Botswana.’26

From the perspective of the San, Bakgalagadi have had greater opportunities than Santo increase their livestock and land holdings and raise their living standards. Many San seethemselves as much less well off than the Bakgalagadi, and, indeed, some describedthemselves as ‘serfs’ (bolata) of the Bakgalagadi.27 San dependency on Bakgalagadifarmers and herders increased over time in some areas as the differential access to powerand resources shifted.28 By the mid-twentieth century, San and Bakgalagadi were in whatsome informants characterised as two different socio-economic strata in Botswana, with theBakgalagadi having higher status than the San. It should be noted, however, that thedifferences between the two in some remote areas of Botswana were more of degree thanin kind, especially in north-eastern Kweneng and the Central Kalahari.29 By the 1970s, inwestern Botswana districts such as Ghanzi and Kgalagadi, the vast majority of DistrictCouncillors were of Bakgalagadi origin, whereas few San were in positions of politicalsigni� cance. Bakgalagadi were seen as more politically active, running regularly for publicof� ce, while San, if they participated at all, contented themselves with voting.

Some San said that the pans and fossil river valleys where they had their homes wereusurped by wealthy Bakgalagadi, and others maintained that they were exploited by wealthyBakgalagadi cattle owners. As one San man put it, ‘There was no love lost between us andthe Bakgalagadi.’ These are some of the reasons various San gave for their desire to formethnic associations and engage in grassroots political movements. As another said, ‘We arethe � rst people’, distinguishing the San from other groups, such as the Bakgalagadi, whocame into the Kalahari later than the San and who the San saw as attempting to dominatethem socially and politically.

The Central Kalahari and the First Peoples

The interaction between San and Bakgalagadi populations and the issues surroundingpoliticised ethnicity and minority and indigenous rights movements can be seen in the caseof the Central Kalahari region. A large game reserve was established here in 1961 to protectresident populations (including both San and Bakgalagadi), wildlife and unique ecologicalfeatures such as rolling plains, fossil river valleys and pans.30 (See Figure 1 for a map ofthe Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana.)

The Central Kalahari region has been occupied for hundreds of thousands of years byhunter-gatherers and, since the early part of the � rst millennium AD, by agropastoral

26 Comment by an anonymous informant, Moiyabana, Central District, 1976.27 For a discussion of the relationship between Kgalagadi ‘masters’ and San ‘serfs’, see G. B. Silberbauer and A.

J. Kuper, ‘Kgalagari Masters and Bushman Serfs: Some Observations’, African Studies, 25, 4 (1966),pp. 171–179.

28 H. Vierich, ‘The Kua of the Southeastern Kalahari: a Study in the Socio-ecology of Dependency ’ (PhD thesis,University of Toronto, 1981), pp. 91–102.

29 S. G. Masimega, personal communication , 1976.30 For a description of the Central Kalahari, see J. Tanaka, The Bushmen, Hunter-Gatherers of the Kalahari, A Study

in Human Ecology (Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1980); G. S. Silberbauer, Hunter and Habitat in theCentral Kalahari Desert (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 32–123; Department of Wildlifeand National Parks, Second Draft Management Plan: Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Khutse Game Reserve(Gaborone, Department of Wildlife and National Parks, 1998), pp. 11–18, 21–29.

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Figure 1. Map of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, showing the major relocation villages, New!Xadeand Kaudwane, and the former settlements in the Central Kalahari.

populations. Oral history data indicate that /Gui and G//ana San populations have residedin the Central Kalahari for generations, as have Boolongwe (Baboalongwe) Bakgalagadi.31

These groups interacted with each other in various ways, exchanging goods and servicesand sometimes intermarrying. Some San worked for Bakgalagadi goat owners in the CentralKalahari, taking care of their animals in exchange for milk, meat and the occasional gift ofa young goat. There were also stories told by some G//ana San in the Central Kalahari oftheir having to pay tribute to Bakgalagadi headmen who, in turn, would sometimes turnover a portion of that tribute, often meat, skins, and ostrich feathers, to Bakwena andBamangwato chiefs.32

31 K. Ikeya, ‘The Historical Dynamics of the Socioeconomic Relationships between the Nomadic San and the RuralKgalagadi’, Botswana Notes and Records, 31 (1999), pp. 19–32.

32 S. G. Masimega, personal communication , 1976.

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Figure 2. Population of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, 1961–1996

Public interest in minority populations and their situation increased in the 1950s as aresult of a series of investigations by researchers from South Africa, Great Britain and theUnited States.33 There was pressure from some sources for changes in the way that Sanwere treated, with some academics suggesting that the San be given ‘a place of their own’.34

For its part, the Bechuanaland Protectorate government, realising that the country was goingto receive its independence before too long, decided that further efforts should be made toassess the socio-economic status of the San.

In 1958, a Protectorate administrative of� cer, George Silberbauer, was appointed tocarry out surveys and come up with recommendations for dealing with San issues, includingwhat to do about the problems of the landless people – many of them San – on the Ghanzifreehold farms in western Botswana.35 One important result of this work was the establish-ment of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana’s largest protected area, in 1961.36

Silberbauer envisaged the CKGR as a kind of ‘people’s reserve’ but, since there was nolegislation in existence to allow for the declaration of such a reserve, the designation ‘gamereserve’ was used instead. There was also the fear that declaring an area a people’s reservewould provoke the white farmers in Ghanzi, who already felt aggrieved about the numbersof people coming on to their farms in search of jobs, food, water and grazing.37

Today, the CKGR is the second largest game reserve on the African continent (theSelous Game Reserve in Tanzania being the largest). Covering an area of 52,347 squarekilometres, it comprises almost half of all land devoted to national parks, game reserves andmonuments in Botswana. At the time of its declaration, it was estimated that there were

33 P. V. Tobias, ‘Fifteen Years of Study on the Kalahari Bushmen or San’, South African Journal of Science, 71(1975), pp. 74–78; L. Marshall, The !Kung of Nyae Nyae (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 1–11.

34 I. Schapera, personal communication , 1980; G. Silberbauer, personal communication , 1978, 1996.35 Silberbauer, Hunter and Habitat in the Central Kalahari, pp. 16–30. See also G. Silberbauer, Report to the

Government of Bechuanaland on the Bushman Survey (Gaberones, Bechuanaland Government , 1965); and the� les on the Bushman Survey in the Botswana National Archives e.g. BNA S.580/7/1, S.580/7/2.

36 The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was promulgated on 14 February 1961 by a High Commissioner’s Notice(No. 33 of 1961). The reserve was also included in the Fauna Conservation Proclamation of 1961 (Gaberones,Bechuanaland Government , 1961), Section 5(1).

37 G. Silberbauer, personal communication , 1978; see also BNA S.580/7/1, Savingram from the Of� cer in Charge,Bushman Survey, to the Government Secretary, Mafeking, 28 April 1960.

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some 4–5,000 people either residing in or having rights to areas within the Reserve. (Fordata on CKGR population from 1961 to 1996, see Figure 2.)

The populations residing in the Central Kalahari region were diverse; they included G/uiand G//ana San and Bakgalagadi.38 Periodically, members of other groups entered theCentral Kalahari to hunt, seek wild plant foods or graze livestock, including Bakwena,Bamangwato, Batawana, Bapedi and, in some cases, Herero. These groups interacted witheach other extensively, exchanging goods and services, and often working together inactivities ranging from hunting to the herding of small stock, horses and donkeys.Population numbers in the region � uctuated over time due to variations in rainfall, theavailability of water substitutes (melons), and social and economic conditions in the areassurrounding the reserve.39

In the 1970s and 1980s, pressure to remove the residents from the Central KalahariGame Reserve began to build up, for several reasons. First, it was felt that wildlifepopulations were declining and that contributory factors included local hunting and thegrazing of domestic livestock in the reserve.40 There were also those who believed that thestatus of the area as a game reserve prevented the implementation of the full array ofdevelopment services that should be available to rural people in Botswana, such as health,education, water and local administration (e.g. tribal police).41 Reports and recommenda-tions by ecologists and government of� cials in the early 1980s held that people shouldeither be removed from the Central Kalahari or their activities should be restrictedconsiderably, including a ban on domestic animals.42 At the same time, San and Bakgala-gadi in the Central Kalahari were telling development workers and researchers that theywished to remain in the reserve and be able to make their own choices about theirlifestyles.43

The residents of the reserve said they wanted to be able to keep their livestock andcontinue to hunt and gather. They were appreciative of the fact that the Botswanagovernment had commissioned research on hunting in remote areas in the 1970s, investiga-tions that included work on groups in the Central Kalahari. This research helped lay thefoundations for the creation in 1979 of a system of Special Game Licences that allowedpeople de� ned as subsistence hunters to obtain speci� ed numbers and types of wildlife,much to the chagrin, in some cases, of a number of ecologists and Department of Wildlifeof� cials.44

The debates over what to do about the people of the CKGR raged through the late 1980s

38 In 1979–80, the breakdown of the population in the Central Kalahari along ethnic lines was as follows: G/ui:296 (26.3 per cent), G//ana: 406 (36 per cent), Bakgalagadi: 284 (25.2 per cent), and others (e.g. Kua): 139 (12.4per cent); M. English, B. Clauss, J. Xhari, personal communications , 1980.

39 M. Murray, Present Wildlife Utilization in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana (Gaborone,Department of Wildlife and National Parks, 1976), pp. 8–10.

40 Personal communications , Director of Wildlife and National Parks and game scouts, 1981; M. and D. Owens,1978–1981; members of the Kalahari Conservation Society, 1982–1985; also interviews with DistrictAdministration personnel in Ghanzi, Central and Kweneng Districts, 1980–1982.

41 Interviews with personnel of the Remote Area Development Programme in central government and Ghanzi andKweneng Districts, and of the Rural Development Unit in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning,1978–1982.

42 See, for example, M. Owens and D. Owens, Preliminary Final Report on the Central Kalahari Predator ResearchProject (Gaborone, Department of Wildlife and National Parks, 1981) and the � les of the Department of Wildlifeand National Parks, the Ministry of Local Government and the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Environment ,Botswana.

43 See, for example, M. English, B. Clauss, W. Swartz and J. Xhari, ‘We, The People of the Short Blanket’:Development Proposals Based on the Needs and Aspirations of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve Population(Ghanzi, Remote Area Development Programme Of� ce, Ghanzi District Council, 1980).

44 See Murray, Present Wildlife Utilization; Hitchcock and Masilo, Subsistence Hunting and Resource Rights; C.Spinage, History and Evolution of the Fauna Conservation Laws of Botswana (Gaborone, Botswana Society,1991), p. 60; personal communications , C. Spinage, 1991, and M. and D. Owens, 1981.

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and into the early 1990s and then rose again in the late 1990s and into the new millennium.These debates pitted people inside the reserve against those outside; caused tensions amongresidents of the reserve; and led to an international and local outcry over the issue ofminority rights in Botswana.45

In August 1985 a Fact-� nding Mission on the Central Kalahari Game Reserve wasappointed by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, M. P. K. Nwako. This commissionwas requested to investigate the situation in the CKGR and offer suggestions about thefuture of the reserve and its people. After three months’ work, its � ndings were reportedto the Botswana government on 15 November 1985.46

On 15 July 1986, a White Paper on remote area dweller settlements in the CKGR wasissued, stating that Botswana government policy was that existing settlements in theReserve should be relocated to areas outside.47 The Minister of Commerce and Industryannounced the government’s decision to have the communities move out of the Reserve on12 October 1986. Residents protested and some met with government and District Councilof� cials in a series of kgotla (local council) meetings in the Central Kalahari and in Ghanzitownship. In December 1986, the Ghanzi District Council rejected the Minister’s decisionto move the residents out.

The mid-1980s was an intense period from the standpoint of politics and internationalrelations in Botswana, and in Southern Africa generally. In May 1985, South Africanmilitary forces had crossed the border into Botswana and attacked the homes of peopleallegedly associated with anti-apartheid activists. A dozen were killed, and feelings ofresentment against South Africa and its military and leadership rose considerably inBotswana. There were also expressions of dissatisfaction on the part of some Batswanapoliticians and civil servants about the role played by Survival International, an indigenouspeoples’ advocacy organisation based in London that formally protested against theBotswana government’s decision to remove the people from the Central Kalahari andencouraged members of the public from around the world to write to President KetumileMasire about their concerns.48

In the latter part of July 1988, the Minister of Local Government, Lands and Housing,Patrick Balopi, and the Minister of Commerce and Industry, M. P. K. Nwako, asked thepeople of the Central Kalahari to leave the reserve. Many of the people who attended thekgotla meeting in !Xade in the CKGR objected to the decision, saying that they wanted bothto remain in the Central Kalahari and to have the right to continue to earn a living there.As one man put it, ‘Who will guard the resources when we are gone?’49

In April 1989, Survival International issued an Urgent Action Bulletin on the issue ofthe forced relocation of people out of the Reserve.50 Letters were written by Survival

45 See Hitchcock, Monitoring, Research, and Development, Appendix 4; A. Mogwe, Who Was There First? AnAssessment of the Human Rights Situation of Basarwa in Selected Communities in the Gantsi District, Botswana(Gaborone, Botswana Christian Council, 1992); Ditshwanelo, When Will This Moving Stop? Report on aFact-Finding Mission of the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve, April 10–14, 1996 (Gaborone, Ditshwanelo,1996); J. Hardbattle, R. Sesana, A. Johannes, personal communications , 1992; I. N. Mazonde, ‘Battle� eld ofWits: Interface Between NGOs, Government , and Donors at the Development Site’, in P. Peters (ed),Development Encounters: Sites of Participation and Knowledge (Cambridge, Harvard Institute for InternationalDevelopment , 2000), pp. 77–94.

46 Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve Fact-� nding Mission, Report of the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve FactFinding Mission (Gaborone, Government Printer, 1985).

47 Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Report of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve Fact Finding Mission. MCICircular No. 1 of 1986 (Gaborone, Government Printer, 1986).

48 Personal communications , M. Colchester, B. Temane, P. Mmusi, 1986.49 A. Johannes and R. Sesana, personal communications , 1992.50 Survival International, ‘Botswana: Kalahari Peoples Forced from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve,’ Urgent

Action Bulletin UAB/BOT/1/A/APR/1989 (London, Survival International, 1989).

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International, other organisations and numerous individuals to the Of� ce of the Presidentand the Ministry of Local Government, Lands and Housing, decrying the government’spolicy of resettlement. Government of� cials reacted to these in various ways, some arguingthat outsiders were attempting to question Botswana’s sovereign rights as a nation-state tomake its own decisions, while others said that ‘wealthy whites with a pro-apartheid agenda’were attempting to impose a ‘separate development policy’ on Botswana.

In the late 1980s, it was argued in both government meetings and public fora that thegovernment of Botswana had the right to remove people from the CKGR because it wasimportant to ensure that ‘people moved from a primitive way of life’.51 There were alsostatements by of� cials to the effect that the people of the Kalahari were attempting tosecede from the nation-state of Botswana through their actions.52

San spokespersons argued that it was high time that the indigenous minorities ofBotswana organised themselves and established community-based institutions and non-government organisations that would represent their interests in seeking land, resource,political and cultural rights.53 Some San wrote for help to the Working Group on IndigenousPopulations (WGIP), a subsidiary organisation of the Sub-Commission on Prevention ofDiscrimination and Protection of Minorities of the UN Human Rights Commission.54 Otherswrote directly to Botswana government of� cials and ministerial units such as the LandDevelopment Committee, which oversaw land use planning and management in Botswana.

The period between 1986 and 1989 was an active one politically for the San andBakgalagadi. In 1986, a multipurpose San charitable and community development organis-ation was founded at D’Kar in Ghanzi District, the Kuru Development Trust,55 whichplayed an important role in discussions about San rights, especially the Nharo San of thenorthern Ghanzi District. The government, for its part, was somewhat suspicious of Kurubecause of its ‘church roots’ – its af� liation with the Namibian section of the DutchReformed Church (Aranos), which was identi� ed, in the minds of some Batswana, withapartheid.

Several civil servants in the Botswana government expressed concern about what theysaw as ‘outside in� uences’ in the San political activities of the late 1980s. This suspicionwas con� rmed in the minds of some when seven San ran for election as District Councillorsin the Ghanzi District in 1989. This was a dramatic change from the lack of direct politicalinvolvement of San in previous elections.56 Some Botswana politicians noted that the Sanand Bakgalagadi who supported the Botswana National Front (BNF), an opposition politicalparty, were beholden to outside sources of support, presumably, though not stated explicitly,South Africa and Namibia.57 One Motswana minister said that the BNF was attempting tocurry favour with disaffected herders and landless labourers on the cattle-posts in remoteparts of Botswana by its tactics of touring the countryside and talking to people, a strategythat, he maintained, was ‘undemocratic and dangerous to the nation-state of Botswana’.58

51 Radio Botswana interviews of Botswana government of� cials, 1988–90. See also Botswana Daily News;Department of Wildlife and National Parks � le, WP NAT 2/2, Vol. IV, 2. Game Reserve and Other Areas, 2.Central Kgalagadi G.R.

52 Interviews with various Botswana government of� cials carried out in 1988–1990 by R. Hitchcock.53 B. LeRoux, A. Thoma, J. Hardbattle and R. Sesana, personal communications , 1992, 1995.54 For a discussion of the WGIP, see R. Barsh, ‘Indigenous Peoples and the UN Commission on Human Rights:

A Case of the Immovable Object and the Irresistible Force’, Human Rights Quarterly, 18, 4 (1996), pp. 782–813.55 See B. LeRoux, Community Owned Development (The Hague, Bernard van Leer Foundation, 1998).56 R. K. Hitchcock and J. D. Holm, ‘Bureaucratic Domination of Hunter-Gatherer Societies: A Study of the San

in Botswana’, Development and Change, 24, 2 (1993), pp. 328–330; Ghanzi District Councillors and residentsof Ghanzi District, personal communications , 1989, 1990.

57 Statements from four Botswana MPs, two Ministers and one Assistant Minister from the Botswana DemocraticParty, personal communications , 1990.

58 Botswana government minister, personal communication , 1990.

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The Central Kalahari resettlement issue continued to be debated in the early 1990s, andmeetings were held in the Ghanzi District and the Central Kalahari by governmentpersonnel, urging the residents to leave the reserve. A major reason given was that theycould thereby have direct access to services and, as was said repeatedly, ‘could developthemselves’. Local people, for their part, pointed out that the government had beenproviding services, including health, education and water, in the Central Kalahari since the1970s. There were rumours to the effect that the slowness in the delivery of services (forexample, food commodities given for drought relief purposes and diesel for some villagewater pumps) was deliberate and was being used as a means of ‘squeezing people out ofthe Central Kalahari’.59

Residents also felt that, if they were forced out of their homelands, they would only bemoving into areas that were already overcrowded or where there was little land because ofexisting commercial cattle ranches established under Botswana’s Tribal Grazing LandPolicy.60 A few people did relocate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but many of themreturned to the reserve, saying that the availability of land and natural resources in adjacentareas was minimal and competition for resources intense.

In March 1992, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government, Landsand Housing stated, in a letter to the Director of the Department of Wildlife and NationalParks, ‘The remote area dwellers who reside within the CKGR have agreed to be resettledat !Xade in the Ghanzi District.’61 Many of the reserve residents claimed that they had madeno such agreement. Tensions were rising in the Central Kalahari and local people weretalking about ‘taking events into their own hands’. What exactly they would do wasunspeci� ed, but it was clear that the people of the Central Kalahari wanted action and didnot want to be required to leave their homes in the reserve.

Several events occurred in 1992 that brought the issues of minority rights in Botswanato world attention. The � rst was the holding of a workshop on ‘Sustainable RuralDevelopment’, sponsored by the Botswana Society and held in Gaborone from 13–15 April1992. There, Komtsha Komtsha, a Nharo San from D’Kar in Ghanzi District, Roy Sesana,a G//ana San from Molapo in the CKGR, and other people spoke out forcefully on theproblems that San in Botswana were facing. Komtsha Komtsha spoke in Nharo and hiswords were translated by John Hardbattle, the son of a Ghanzi farmer whose mother wasNharo. Komtsha raised the issue of identity, saying that nobody had asked the San by whatname they should be known, while other tribes had names for themselves and thus knewwho they were; the San, he said, wanted to be known by their own names and to have therespect of others, including that of the Botswana government.62 The discussants at theworkshop decried the widespread poverty, exploitation, alienation from land and naturalresources, and what they viewed as the lack of equal access to development assistance thatthe San and some of their neighbours were experiencing in Botswana’s remote areas.63

59 Interviews with staff of Ghanzi District administration, Ghanzi District Council and Land Board staff, and RemoteArea Development Programme personnel , 1990.

60 The area to the north of the game reserve, known as the Hainaveld, was a large commercial leasehold ranchingarea for North West District, with 72 ranches; to the south east, in Kweneng District, there were also commercialranches, as there were in the Central District to the east. The only areas that lacked ranches or freehold farmswere in north western Kweneng and the Okwa Wildlife Management Area in Ghanzi District, where resourceswere considered scarce and there were already settlement schemes for San such as East and West Hanahai.

61 Department of Wildlife and National Parks, � le WP NAT 2/2, Vol. IV, 2. Game Reserve and Other Areas, 2.Central Kgalagadi G.R., Letter from Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government , Lands, and Housingto Director, DWNP.

62 See Saugestad, Inconvenien t Indigenous, pp. 175–176.63 See the discussions in D. Nteta and J. Hermans (eds), Sustainable Rural Development: Proceedings of aWorkshop

Held by the Botswana Society in Gaborone, Botswana, 13–15 April, 1992 (Gaborone, Botswana Society, 1992),pp. 227, 230, 237.

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After the workshop, on 18 May 1992, a meeting was held between San representativesand of� cials in the Ministry of Local Government, Lands and Housing in Gaborone. There,the San called for the creation of new types of representative structures, including a Sannational council, and for representation of San in the Botswana House of Chiefs. Inaddition, they asked for a vote (a � nancial commitment by government) to be set aside tocover consultations in order to establish this council.64

The responses of the Ministry personnel were not positive. Some of the of� cials whoattended the meeting said that the San were attempting to obtain self-determination(‘self-rule’) and seeking to secede from Botswana.65 The Permanent Secretary reportedlysaid, ‘Botswana owns the Basarwa and it will own Basarwa until it ceases to be a country;they will never be allowed to walk around in skins again.’66 She added that she believedthat the San demand for ‘self-rule’ was being instigated by some non-governmentalorganisations and donor agencies from outside the country.67 The San decried the fact thatthe meeting was held in Setswana, which meant that some of them could not understandthe discussions. They came away feeling not only that they had been insulted but also thatthe Botswana government was not serious about negotiating with them and promoting theirsocial, economic and cultural rights.68

In June 1992, an international conference on San issues was held in Windhoek,Namibia. None of the San who attended the meeting at the of� ces of the Ministry of LocalGovernment, Lands and Housing in Gaborone were allowed to attend as of� cial represen-tatives of Botswana, although the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Pelanome Venson,and other government representatives did go to Windhoek. There, San spokespersonsstressed the importance of being able to represent themselves in deliberations about land useand development planning. They also said that they were subjected to discriminatorytreatment by the governments of southern African states who, they maintained, refused torecognise their land and resource rights and their rights to practise their own cultures andspeak their own languages.69

First People of the Kalahari as a San Organisation

An outgrowth of both the complex political interactions that took place in the early 1990sand the threat of further dispossession was an expansion in political activism among San.First People of the Kalahari, also known as Kgeikani Kweni, a San advocacy organisation,was founded of� cially in October 1993 by John Hardbattle, Roy Sesana, Aron Johannes andother San from various parts of Botswana. The Kuru Development Trust played a crucialrole in the formation and sustaining of First People of the Kalahari by encouraging JohnHardbattle to work on behalf of the San; serving as a sounding board and offering ideas andmoral support; and providing vehicles, fuel and camping equipment for trips around GhanziDistrict and into the Central Kalahari.

First People of the Kalahari was, in some ways, an outgrowth of San efforts to havetheir voices heard and be identi� ed as a distinct ethnic group wanting equal rights withother groups in Botswana. It de� ned itself from the outset as a San social movement andadvocacy organisation, with links directly to the grassroots San communities across

64 Interviews with J. Hardbattle, R. Sesana, Komtsha Komtsha, 1992.65 ‘Basarwa Demand Self–Rule’, Daily News, 21 May 1992.66 ‘We Were Insulted – Basarwa’, The Gazette, 3 June 1992.67 Statement to a reporter for Mmegi Wa Dikang, 22 May 1992.68 J. Hardbattle, A. Johannes, personal communications , 1992.69 Republic of Namibia, Regional Conference on Development Programmes for Africa’s San Populations,

Windhoek, Namibia, 16–18 June, 1992 (Windhoek, Republic of Namibia, 1992).

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Botswana. Unlike the Kuru Development Trust, whose board comprised primary of NharoSan, First People of the Kalahari drew board members from several San groups, including/Gui, G//ana, Nharo and Ju/’hoansi.

The early 1990s saw San efforts to organise themselves and reach out to variouscommunities in Botswana. Links were forged with community development organisationsand institutions such as the Botswana Christian Council and the Red Cross. Funds weresought to support the work of First People of the Kalahari from a variety of sources,including sources in Europe, the United States, Canada and South Africa. Meetings wereheld at community level in various parts of Botswana in which the issues facing the Sanwere addressed. Support was also sought from local people for the effort to establish anational-level San presence and to promote San identity.

This was by no means an easy period in recent San history, with the governmentseeking to declare a founder of Kuru Development Trust a Prohibited Immigrant (PI),efforts dropped only after an international outcry and discussion between Botswana’sPresident Masire and President De Klerk of South Africa. The international interest in Sanissues expanded signi� cantly as a result of the widespread media coverage of the FirstInternational San Conference and the statements by San and others about the plight of Sanpeoples in southern Africa.

In 1992, a wealthy American retired construction engineer, John Perrott, produced abook called Bush for the Bushman after having visited a group of what he saw as‘traditional hunter-gatherers’ in the north western Kalahari Desert. Deeply interested inwhat he saw as ‘pristine’ hunting and gathering San, Perrott decided to establish a ‘Savethe Kalahari San’ campaign and sought to draw international attention to their plight.70 Itis interesting to note that the ‘pristine hunter-gatherers’ he visited in western Ngamiland hadbeen in a government-sponsored settlement since the 1970s and had had cattle for hundredsof years.71 Perrott’s work did serve to draw the ire of some Batswana politicians and civilservants, who saw him as ‘a wealthy American’ who was ‘attempting to hurt the � nereputation for human rights and democracy’ of Botswana. Several Batswana noted wrylythat Perrott did not target the large multinational mining and oil companies operating inBotswana because, they maintained, it would have been a con� ict of interest for him to doso, since such companies had employed him for years in Africa and other parts of theworld.72

The 1992–93 period was an active one in San political history and in Botswana. Thegovernment was concerned about the degree to which the First International San Confer-ence in Windhoek had called into question Botswana’s human rights record. Discussionswere held with the agencies that wished to fund a follow-up international San conference(the Swedish International Development Authority and the Norwegian Agency for Develop-ment Cooperation), and tensions were high. Representatives from the Ministry of LocalGovernment, Lands and Housing visited Norway and spoke with government of� cials theredealing with Norway’s indigenous people, the Saami, and representatives of the SaamiAssembly.

70 See J. Perrott, Bush for the Bushman: Need “The Gods Must Be Crazy” People Die? (Greenville, Pennsylvania,Beaver Pond Publishing and Printing, 1992); John Perrott was deeply in� uenced by Jamie Uys’s 1980 � lm, TheGods Must Be Crazy, which stereotypically depicts a clash between ‘traditional’ San hunter-gatherer s and‘modern society’.

71 /Xai/Xai (CaeCae), the place visited by Perrott, had been studied by the Marshall family in the early 1950s,Richard Lee in the early 1960s, the Harvard Kalahari Research Group in the late 1960s, Ed Wilmsen and PollyWiessner in the early 1970s, and by a team of researchers from the University of Botswana in 1987. For adescription of /Xai/Xai, see E. Wilmsen, Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari (Chicago,University of Chicago Press, 1989).

72 Interviews with Botswana government of� cials and politicians, 1992–94.

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San, for their part, organised themselves with help from the Kuru Development Trust,the University of Botswana, Ditshwanelo and numerous other non-governmental organisa-tions (NGOs) in Botswana. They participated in a series of workshops in various parts ofBotswana including Palapye in September 1993, where they elected representatives toattend the Second International San Conference, scheduled for the following month. Atthese meetings, San spokespersons identi� ed some of their problems in Botswana as theysaw them: poverty, alienation from land and resources, lack of political representation at thenational level, labour exploitation, discrimination, lack of attention paid speci� cally to Sanbut rather a focus on a bureaucratically de� ned group known as Remote Area Dwellers, andthe Botswana government failure to support land rights, cultural rights and developmentrights of San peoples.73

The Second International San Conference, held in Gaborone in October 1993, drewworld attention. San from many parts of southern Africa, including Botswana, Namibia andSouth Africa, attended, along with representatives of international organisations, � lm-mak-ers, journalists, researchers and indigenous peoples’ advocacy groups. At this conference,organisations such as the Kuru Development Trust emerged as major forces in the quest forSan rights and recognition. According to some who attended, these organisations were seenas having brought San people together to address issues of concern and raise awareness inpublic fora in Botswana, and were also seen as groups that were capable of articulating Sanconcerns to southern African governments and the international community. As Saugestadnotes, the second San conference was a watershed in the history of San–state relations inBotswana; it marked the beginning of a process in which the relationships between the stateand the San minority was re-de� ned.74

One of the outgrowths of the San conferences was the establishment and registrationwith the Botswana government of First People of the Kalahari as an of� cial body. It openedan of� ce in Ghanzi in western Botswana in April 1994. Its staff, made up entirely of San,engaged in consultations with people in Ghanzi District and in Gaborone. It obtainedfunding for its administrative work through a combination of letter-writing, personalcontacts and grant-writing, with some assistance from outside the organisation. Like manysocial movements among indigenous peoples, First People of the Kalahari had close tieswith international indigenous peoples’ organisations and NGOs working with indigenouspeoples, including the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs of Denmark andPlenty Canada.

First People of the Kalahari engaged in a number of activities common to such groups.The leaders of the organisation travelled around the country and spoke to individuals,communities and NGOs about issues facing the San, especially those related to land andresource rights, language rights and identity. They pointed out that the San in mostcommunities lacked their own leaders, since many of the headmen and head women thatgovernment had appointed were non-San. They said they wanted education in mother-tongue San languages and more San teachers. They decried the high drop-out rates amongSan students, saying that much of the problem was related to the different treatment of Sanchildren by some teachers, who also used corporal punishment, which they felt wasinappropriate and alien to San culture. In these discussions, the San spokespersons ,including a number of women, spoke out about the need for gender equality, based on theegalitarian and gender-equitable systems of San peoples.

The spokespersons of First People of the Kalahari and the Kuru Development Trustfrequently referred to their ‘indigenous identity’, saying that the San were the aboriginal

73 Interviews with J. Hardbattle, S. Saugestad, A. Mogwe, R. Sesana, N. Mbere, A. Johannes, J. Morris, 1992–93.74 Saugestad, Inconvenien t Indigenous, pp. 206–208.

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people of Botswana (‘the � rst people’) and that all other groups, including the Bakgalagadi,Batswana, Kalanga, Herero, Mbukushu and Yeyi, entered what is now Botswana long afterthey did. They argued for the recognition of ‘group rights’ – collective rights for Sanpeoples, which included protection of group identity, belief systems and languages.75

Hardbattle and Sesana spoke out about the Central Kalahari Game Reserve forcedrelocation issue at a series of meetings in the United States, including encounters withAmerican government of� cials and representatives of the Botswana US Embassy inNovember 1995. At a meeting at the Botswana Embassy, there was an exchange betweenHardbattle and President Masire over the issue of San rights and the need for closercooperation at the local level between First People of the Kalahari and the Botswanagovernment.76 Hardbattle asked the government of Botswana to ratify the UniversalDeclaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.77 President Masire, for his part, said thathe was not happy that the organisation’s leaders chose to meet with him outside Botswanarather than in the country itself.

Hardbattle and Sesana attended the meetings of the Human Rights Commission inGeneva in March 1996, along with members of other indigenous groups and minorities. Thetwo men spoke out forcefully on the need for Botswana to recognise the rights and identityof the San,78 saying, ‘We are the � rst people’; they stressed the importance of their ancestralterritories, the wide-ranging roles of wild plants and animals in San life, the value ofreciprocity and sharing, and the crucial nature of San custom and tradition.

On 4 April 1997, the government of Botswana made a statement to the Human RightsCommission in response to the discussions held at the Commission.79 Maintaining allBatswana were equal and have the same rights ‘as laid down in the Constitution’, itadmitted that there were ‘pockets of people who do not enjoy the same level of welfare anddevelopment compared to others’ in Botswana. The statement went on to say ‘The RemoteArea Dwellers, the majority of whom are Basarwa, are in such a category.’80 Thegovernment held that it was ‘obligatory for the present society’ to conserve the land and itsnatural resources for future generations, and it was for this reason that it ‘encourages theBasarwa to settle outside of the game Reserve so that it can further its intentions ofeconomically empowering them.’ A major reason given for this decision, according to thegovernment, was that the land use patterns of the contemporary residents of the reserve,which included agriculture and livestock-raising, were ‘not compatible with conservingwildlife resources’.81 The land use con� ict, the government argued, was at the core of thecontroversy over the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. It went on to say, ‘Our Constitutionwill not allow us to treat our Basarwa compatriots as if they were indistinguishable fromwildlife, as some of our friends overseas would have us do.’82

The San, for their part, saw things a bit differently. According to Hardbattle and Sesana,who were interviewed by various media outlets after the meeting in Geneva, the San wereby tradition mobile hunter-gatherers who wished to retain access to their ancestral territories

75 For an excellent discussion of group or collective rights, see W. Felice, Taking Suffering Seriously: TheImportance of Collective Human Rights (Albany, State University of New York Press, 1996).

76 See ‘Masire Faces Hardbattle’, The Botswana Gazette, 26 June 1996.77 Hardbattle asked that Botswana sign and ratify what he called the Convention on the Rights of Indigenous

Peoples. In fact, the indigenous peoples’ document was at the time simply a declaration and had not been passedon to the UN General Assembly for consideration as a convention .

78 For a brief discussion of the Human Rights Commission meeting, see B. Crosette, ‘Rising Variety of GroupsVie for Attention at U.N. Human Rights Forum’, New York Times, 31 March 1996.

79 See Government of Botswana, Statement by Botswana Government to the Human Rights Commission, GenevaApril 4, 1997 (Gaborone, Government of Botswana, 1997).

80 Ibid., p. 2.81 Ibid., p. 4.82 Ibid., p. 5.

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and to the wild plants and animals upon which they depended.83 They also argued that theSan were pursuing strategies that were aimed at conserving the resources while at the sametime utilising them in such a way that the wildlife and wild plants were not being depleted.They stressed that the people of the region wanted development, but development on theirown terms. They pointed out the crucial importance of maintaining the languages, culturesand identities of the various peoples occupying the Central Kalahari region in the contextof providing culturally relevant development assistance.84

As Hardbattle noted in an interview in 1996, the of� cial (Botswana government) lineon the people of the Central Kalahari was as follows: (1) the residents of the reserve wereopposed to development; (2) the residents were culturally oriented toward mobility andneeded to be settled ‘so that they could develop’; (3) they were over-utilising the resourcesof the Central Kalahari; and (4) efforts needed to be made to stop the exploitation of wildplants and animals in the reserve so that the resources could be conserved and available fortourists to enjoy.85 He went on to say that he thought that the real reason the governmentwas taking the position it was, had more to do with the mineral and tourism potential ofthe reserve than it did with wildlife conservation. He was especially vocal about the rolesthat he felt DeBeers, Falconbridge and other multinational mining companies were playingbehind the scenes in in� uencing Botswana government policy on the Central Kalahari.

Hardbattle told me in 1996 that the government of Botswana was pursuing a kind of‘divide and conquer’ strategy, attempting to get some people in the Central Kalahari towork against others. He pointed out that particular pressure had been placed on theBakgalagadi residents of the reserve to agree to leave, in the hopes that the withdrawal oftheir livestock and cessation of their agricultural activities would result in some of the otherresidents, dependent on them for herding and agricultural work, also agreeing to leave thereserve.

Hardbattle and Sesana were successful in convincing some foreign governments and theEuropean Community of the seriousness of the issues facing San in Botswana. In May1996, a delegation of ambassadors from the United States, Great Britain, Norway and theEuropean Union visited Ghanzi on a fact-� nding tour. While this visit did not lead togovernmental condemnation of Botswana’s actions with regard to the people of the CentralKalahari, one ambassador did point out in an interview that he felt that the subsistencerights of San people were being denied when they were refused Special Game Licences andarrested for violations of the conservation laws of Botswana. Several environmental NGOs,such as the WorldWide Fund for Nature, the World Wildlife Fund-US, and the InternationalUnion for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources/World Conservation Unionpointed out that communities in other countries, notably Zimbabwe and Zambia, were ableto generate income and at the same time promote conservation in areas where local peoplehad co-management rights over wildlife resources, something that they also recommendedfor the people of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.86

In November1996, John Hardbattle lost a battle with stomach cancer and died. Some ofthe activities of First People of the Kalahari were put on hold, and there was a fair amountof uncertainty about what would happen to the organisation and to the people of the CentralKalahari whose rights were being questioned by the Botswana government. First Peoplestaff said that, at that time, they felt overwhelmed by what was happening; some of themthought the ‘wildlife lobby’ was having some success in convincing the international

83 R. Adamson, S. Davis, J. Hardbattle and R. Sesana, personal communications , 1996.84 J. Hardbattle, R. Sesana, R. Adamson, personal communications , 1996.85 Interview with John Hardbattle, April 1996.86 D. Cumming, I. Bond, B. Wyckoff-Baird, C. Weaver, R. Jansen, personal communications , 1992.

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community that it was necessary for people to be removed from the reserve, and that thiswould be easier now with ‘Hardbattle, a charismatic San leader,’ out of the way.87

The � rst half of 1997 saw numerous discussions by CKGR San and Bakgalagadi withgovernment of� cials, NGO representatives and members of indigenous peoples’ advocacygroups. Some, including members of conservation organisations and government of� cials,were arguing that the Central Kalahari should be turned into a game reserve per se andpeople excluded completely, since, as they put it, ‘People and wildlife are not compatiblein a game reserve.’88 The Assistant Minister of Local Government, Lands and Housing helda kgotla meeting at !Xade in May 1997 in which the plans for a new settlement, to be calledNew !Xade, in the western part of Ghanzi District outside the boundaries of the reserve,were announced. The responses of Central Kalahari community members were generally indisagreement with the Assistant Minister’s position. They said, for example, that removingthem from their ancestral lands was, in effect, cultural destruction. Several people pointedout that the government was trying to undercut not only their land and resource rights butalso their rights to their own cultural identities, which were tied closely to the land andgraves of their ancestors.

The Resettlement of People from the Central Kalahari

In spite of the protests, the government of Botswana resettled over 1,100 people outside theCentral Kalahari Game Reserve in May–June 1997.89 They were moved in trucks to twosettlements, one in Ghanzi (New !Xade), and the other in Kweneng District (Kaudwane).Those who were resettled were provided with some, albeit minimal, compensation for theassets (e.g. houses and other facilities) that they lost. At the new locations, food, water andsome social services were provided, although coverage reportedly was incomplete.

From the standpoint of people who had been dependent for at least part of theirsubsistence and income on wild resources, the new settlements were problematic. Bothlocations lacked suf� cient numbers of wild resources around them to sustain the population.New !Xade did not have a functioning water point, and the settlement was located in anarea that lacked large shade trees and had little in the way of � rewood. One Botswanagovernment of� cial pointed out to me in an anonymous interview that the New !Xade sitewas chosen speci� cally because it was so bleak; it was hoped that such a poor resettlementlocation would serve to convince the government not to go ahead and move people there.‘Obviously,’ he said, ‘the plan back� red.’90

When people were moved out of the Central Kalahari, it was done so precipitately thatmembers of families were separated from one another. In the new localities, water wasscarce, and the tents that people were given were hot. The residents of New !Xade wereforced to walk miles in order to obtain � rewood for cooking, heat and light, poles formaking homes, and grasses for thatching of roofs. People had to resort to seekingalternative sources of fuel and construction materials. They also had to shift away fromdependence on wild resources, becoming almost entirely dependent upon the governmentfor their subsistence and income requirements.

As some San NGOs and other groups noted, such a situation was not in line withinternational practice relating to involuntary relocation, which stipulates that people aresupposed to be at least as well off after they have moved as they were before they were

87 Interviews with First People of the Kalahari staff and former staff members, 1995, 1996, 2000.88 Interviews with several members of the Kalahari Conservation Society who wished to remain anonymous .89 C. Erni, ‘Resettlement of Khwe Communities Continues’, Indigenous Affairs, 3–4 (1997), pp. 8–11.90 Interview with a Botswana government of� cial, Gaborone, January 2000.

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relocated.91 According to some residents of New !Xade and Kaudwane, the relocation didnot provide them with suf� cient bene� ts to ensure that their standards of living weremaintained, much less improved. Given this, the relocation was viewed as a violation ofbasic human rights and of international policies and procedures involving involuntaryresettlement. Various San NGO spokespersons , and advocacy groups in Botswana and othercountries, made these points in discussions at the time of the resettlement and subse-quently.92

Around then too, in June 1997, First People of the Kalahari representatives met withpeople inside and outside the reserve. It had already been decided, at Gros Barmen inNamibia in September 1996, that a useful strategy for dealing with the CKGR issue wouldbe to establish a negotiating team made up of residents of the reserve and members of SanNGOs and Botswana advocacy groups, backed up by a legal team.93

One of the suggestions of the Gros Barmen San conference was to seek information onsimilar kinds of land cases in Southern Africa, in particular the Kalahari Gemsbok Parkrestitution claim of the ?Khomani San in South Africa. It was pointed out in discussion thatthere were other cases in which local people were struggling against the nation-state toprevent forced resettlement, one example being the Himba who were attempting to preventthe Namibian government from building a dam at Epupa Falls – a sacred site to the Himba– on the Cunene River between Namibia and Angola.94 Several people pointed out asuccessful example of a ‘people’s movement’ that stopped a large-scale water developmentproject in north western Botswana – the Southern Okavango Integrated Water DevelopmentProject – halted in 1991 because of the opposition of local people and NGOs in theOkavango Delta region. There were efforts being made by other African indigenous peoplesin the Southern African Development Conference (SADC) region to seek recognition ofland rights from SADC states, one example being the Barabaig of Tanzania.95

The members of First People of the Kalahari, the Working Group of IndigenousMinorities in Southern Africa, and the Kuru Development Trust all felt in 1996 and 1997that they could make positive headway with the Botswana government if they could to setup a negotiating team that could then enter into discussions in good faith about the issuesof land, natural resources and cultural rights (or, as they put it, ‘identity’) in the CentralKalahari. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve, therefore, became the test case for landclaims for San in Botswana.96 When it was pointed out to San that as yet there were no clearcases of land claims by indigenous peoples having reached a successful conclusion inAfrica, they usually responded, ‘Well, if that is the case, then this one will be the � rst ofmany.’

The � rst CKGR Workshop was organised by First People of the Kalahari and held at!Xade from 10–13 December 1996. Attended by people from all seven of the existingsettlements in the reserve, the meeting was facilitated by Samora Gaborone of the

91 World Bank, Operational Directive 4.30: Involuntary Resettlement (Washington, D.C., 1990); T. Scudder,‘Resettlement’, in A. K. Biswas (ed), Water Resources: Environmental Planning, Management, and Development(New York, McGraw-Hill, 1997), pp. 667–710.

92 See, for example, ‘Basarwa Resettlement Criticized’, Daily News, 20 May 1997.93 Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa, Report on the San Conference, Gros Barmen, 8

to 12 September, 1996 (Windhoek, WIMSA, 1996), pp. 16–19.94 For an analysis of the efforts of the Himba to stop the Epupa Dam, see S. L. Harring, ‘“God Gave Us This Land”:

the OvaHimba, the Proposed Epupa Dam, the Independen t Namibian State, and Law and Development inSouthern Africa’, The Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, 14, 1 (2001), pp. 35–106.

95 For discussions of land claims and organising efforts of southern African indigenous peoples, see Veber, Dahl,Wilson and Waehle (eds), “Never Drink from the Same Cup”; A. Barnard and J. Kenrick (eds), Africa’sIndigenous Peoples: ‘First Peoples’ or ‘Marginalized Minorities’? (Edinburgh, Centre of African Studies,University of Edinburgh, 2001).

96 A. Johannes, R. Sesana, A. Thoma, Q. Xhokuri and K. Phetolo, personal communications , 1996–97.

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University of Botswana’s Institute of Adult Education and Glyn Williams, a lawyer fromChennels Albertyn in South Africa, the � rm that was working with the ?Khomani San intheir land claim efforts in and around Kalahari Gemsbok Park. The workshop concludedthat each village in the Central Kalahari should elect a committee of six or seven people,which was done in early January 1997, so that by the spring, an overall committee had beenformed.

In June 1997, a second CKGR workshop was held in D’Kar, where it was agreed toestablish a negotiating team that would seek to work out an agreement with the governmentof Botswana to give land and resource rights to all of the people who had claims toancestral territories in the Central Kalahari. The team included delegates from each of theorganisations representing San people (First People of the Kalahari, the Kuru DevelopmentTrust and the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa) and onedelegate each from Botswana-based ‘supporting non-government organisations’(Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Christian Council, and the Botswana Council of Non-Govern-ment Organisations). The � rst action of the negotiating team was to send a letter to theMinister of Local Government, Lands and Housing, Patrick Balopi, to inform him of theteam’s formation and to note that the team wished to take up President Masire’s offer tomeet to discuss the issues of concern to the San in the Central Kalahari. No response to thisletter was forthcoming from the Ministry.

During the period from the relocation out of the reserve in May–June 1997 up to early1998, the negotiating team and people from the various Central Kalahari communities metand discussed what responses there should be to the resettlement. Some argued for directaction, including formal demonstrations against the government of Botswana in the capital.There were also more subtle means of passive resistance employed, in which peoplereturned to the Central Kalahari wholesale, ignoring government decisions about resettle-ment. Others elected to leave the new settlements and move to Ghanzi, Gaborone, Maun,Serowe and Molepolole, where they joined relatives and friends residing there. Some fromthe new settlements asked why no efforts had been made to put forth a formal land claimto the government of Botswana or the United Nations.

There were continued efforts by the negotiating team to try to get Botswana governmentof� cials to meet with them. These mostly went for naught, as government of� cials arguedrepeatedly that the team did not have a mandate to represent the interests of the people whohad been resettled or those who remained in the Central Kalahari.97 Many of the team’sletters simply went unanswered. When asked why they thought this was the case, severalpeople from the Central Kalahari claimed, ‘It is because we are considered balata (servants)and we have no voice.’98

At long last, on 24 March 1998 a formal meeting was held in Gaborone between thenegotiating team and the out-going President of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire, on theCentral Kalahari Game Reserve issue. While the team was pleased to have had theopportunity to meet the President, they did not feel that any headway was made in termsof getting government commitment to allow people to return to the reserve.

The negotiating team and the San organisations then decided to engage in a multifacetedstrategy to assist the people of the CKGR in their efforts to assert their rights. This strategyincluded (1) a call for further direct negotiations with the government of Botswana; (2)mapping of areas in the Central Kalahari and registration of people’s land claims; (3) aninformation dissemination campaign to familiarise people in the region with the options

97 This point was made, for example, by Daniel Kwelagobe, then the Minister of Local Government , Lands andHousing, in meetings with the negotiating team in July and September 1998.

98 Interviews with former Central Kalahari Game Reserve residents, 1998–2001.

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available to them; and (4) preparation of a formal legal land claim that would be � led ifthe Botswana government failed to honour agreements worked out with the negotiatingteam.

An important part of the strategy of the San organisations in seeking to promote Sanland rights was the introduction of sophisticated mapping technologies for plotting land useand community land tenure patterns. Indigenous peoples in various parts of the world havetaken part in community mapping efforts in order to substantiate their claims to land.99

These efforts have included working with local communities and individuals in theidenti� cation, mapping and demarcation of the areas where they lived or which theyutilised, or to which they had long-standing claims. The impacts of these efforts range fromenhanced control of land and improved land use management and planning, to greaterawareness on the part of local people of their resources and rights. The people of theCentral Kalahari and their supporters hoped that the mapping work would serve as the basisfor land claims to be made to the Botswana government. In addition, they hoped that themaps of ancestral territories could be used in the drawing up of the Central Kalahari GameReserve and Khutse Game Reserve Management Plan by the Department of Wildlife andNational Parks in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.100

While the San did not make modern maps as we know them today, they did use mentalmaps and often had very clear ideas on the characteristics, location, size and features oftheir territories and of the land beyond. As Valiente-Noailles notes, ‘The vast reserve istraditionally divided into 8 territories, bounded by natural features such as molapos, pans,and speci� c trees. Each of these territories has a speci� c name in the local Bushmanlanguage and in addition a sometimes even better known name in Sekgalagadi.’101 Visitorswould ask permission of the !u:ma (owner) or !u:sa (owners) of the band territory to ‘stayin your territory and drink your water’. In the Central Kalahari, the territories of severalbands were combined into a band cluster territory (‘n!u-sa).102 It was these territories thatbecame the subject of the mapping exercises mounted by First People of the Kalahari andits associates in the latter part of the 1990s and into the new millennium.103

Like other indigenous peoples’ organisations concerned about land rights issues, the Sanorganisations expended considerable energy working on the ways in which people could getaccess to land in Botswana. Assistance was sought from an indigenous lawyer who workedwith First Peoples Worldwide, Kristyna Bishop, who was familiar with land claims of FirstNations in Canada. Bishop held a series of workshops on land rights issues in Botswana andhelped to produce a useful brochure about the land allocation process in Botswana, entitledSteps Toward Your Land Rights, which was published in both English and Setswana byDitshwanelo.104

The primary way that people got rights to land and water resources in the past inwestern and central Botswana was through self-allocation.105 There were also instanceswhere people approached headmen and chiefs in the hopes of being granted land forresidential, arable or grazing purposes. This was the case, for example, with G/ui andG//ana San and the Bakgalagadi in the Central Kalahari who would approach the chief ofthe Bakwena in Molepolole and request land. In most cases, these efforts were unsuccessful.

99 See, for example, C. Eghenter, Mapping People’s Forests: The Role of Mapping in Planning Community-basedConservation Areas in Indonesia (Washington, DC, Biodiversity Support Program, 2000).

100 R. Sesana, I. Baehr, M. Rampadi, personal communications , 1999–2000.101 C. Valiente-Noailles, The Kua: Life and Soul of the Central Kalahari Bushmen (Rotterdam, A.A. Balkema, 1993),

p. 55.102 A. Albertson, personal communications , 2000, 2001.103 A. Albertson and First People of the Kalahari members, personal communications, 2000–2001.104 Know Your Law 5, Land Rights, Steps Toward Your Land Rights (Gaborone, Ditshwanelo, 1998).105 Schapera, Native Land Tenure; interviews with residents of western Botswana, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1995, 2000.

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After the passage of the Tribal Land Act in Botswana, which went into effect in 1970,people were supposed to apply to the district land board or, in the case of arable andresidential plots, to the sub-land board of each district. Those San who did this did, in somecases, receive residential and arable land, but they were not able to get rights over grazingland.

In order to further their claims, some individuals mapped the areas that they wished toapply for. Having maps available has sometimes led to positive reactions on the part of theland boards. First People of the Kalahari, with advice from groups working on landmapping in the Kalahari Gemsbok area in South Africa and from the Working Group ofIndigenous Minorities in Southern Africa, sought to obtain training for some of itspersonnel in community mapping using Geographic Positioning Systems instruments andaerial photographs.106 Over the next two years, many of the ancestral territories of CentralKalahari were mapped, including Menoatshe, Gukama and Metsiamonong. The questionremains as to whether or not the Department of Wildlife and National Parks will incorporatethe maps – and by so doing accept the signi� cance of the claims to communal use zones– in its Third Draft of the Management Plan of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve andKhutse Game Reserve. This plan had yet to be completed and presented formally to thegovernment of Botswana as of July 2002.

At the University of Botswana conference on ‘Challenging Minorities, Difference, andTribal Citizenship,’ held in late May 2000, Minister Nasha told participants that if peopleliving in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve wanted aspects of development such aseducation, then they would need to leave the Central Kalahari and move into settlementswhere the government could provide direct development assistance in the form of schools,health programmes and commodities. The minister appealed for ‘progress’ and suggestedthat people should not be allowed to remain in what in effect was ‘the Stone Age’. Someof the San who heard about these remarks said that they felt they were being discriminatedagainst on the basis of their ethnicity and lifestyles. Others said that they were not beinggiven the opportunity by the Botswana government to maintain their cultural identities,which were based in part upon the importance of hunting and food-sharing in society.107

Resource Rights Issues in the Central Kalahari

There were threats not only to the land rights of the people of the Central Kalahari byBotswana government actions in the period from 1997 to 2002, but also infringements onthe rights to natural resources. In the late 1980s, Department of Wildlife and National Parksgame scouts had erected signs on the roads into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve sayingthat it was illegal to hunt or to collect wild plants in the reserve. Reserve residents decriedsuch proclamations as tantamount to ‘cultural destruction’, because they infringed on therights of people to pursue their traditional modes of earning a livelihood. According to localpeople, the reduction in hunting meant that they had fewer opportunities to eat meat andthat it was more dif� cult to get skins and other goods that were useful in making crafts thatthey could sell to raise income.

In March 2000, the Botswana government passed new legislation regulating nationalparks and game reserves; individuals had to submit a formal request in writing to theDepartment of Wildlife and National Parks in order to be able to hunt in the Central

106 In October 1999, two First People of the Kalahari community mobilisers worked with the Trust for OkavangoCultural and Development Initiatives (TOCaDI) in community mapping efforts in western Ngamiland.

107 Interviews with San and Bakgalagadi , some of whom attended the ‘Challenging Minorities’ conference, readabout the results of the meeting in several of Botswana’s newspapers or attended meetings held subsequently .

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Kalahari Game Reserve.108 The problem with this stipulation was that there was noguarantee that the Director of Wildlife would agree to such a request. At the same time, nomore Special Game Licences were being issued in the CKGR. What this meant, in effect,was that the central government, not the districts or the regional wildlife of� cers, now hadcontrol over the issuing of hunting licences in the Central Kalahari.

Besides access to licences, the people faced other problems. Some serious human rightsincidents relating to the enforcement of wildlife laws occurred in the Central Kalahari in thelate 1990s and early in the new millennium, as they had in the early 1990s.109 One of theseincidents involved the detention of thirteen men from New !Xade, arrested on 13 July 1999for allegedly having been engaged in illegal hunting, even though they were in possessionof Special Game Licences. Most of the charges against them were dropped in January 2001,but one remaining charge of violating hunting laws has yet to be heard.110 The reaction ofSan and Bakgalagadi in the Central Kalahari and adjacent to these arrests was that theywere being discriminated against because of who they were and the fact that they hadresisted the imposition of the government’s involuntary resettlement policy.111

Another serious human rights incident occurred at Molapo in the Central Kalahari inAugust 2000, when a group of people from the village were arrested and detained by theDepartment of Wildlife and National Park’s anti-poaching unit and the Botswana Police.The twenty men and four women were taken to a remote camp away from the village wherethey were questioned over a three-day period. There are reports that the detainees werebeaten and abused in the process of obtaining information. One man, Mothambo Sesana, theheadman of Molapo and the brother of Roy Sesana of First People of the Kalahari,subsequently died of a heart attack, allegedly as a result of the treatment received. Humanrights organisations such as Survival International sought further information on thisincident, wrote letters of protest to the Botswana government and disseminated informationon it via the worldwide web. Government of� cials denied the allegations, saying SurvivalInternational’s campaign against Botswana was unfair, ‘smacked of special treatment of aspeci� c ethnic group’ and was thus separatist in intent.112

In August 2001, the Botswana government conducted a census exercise that enumeratedthe numbers of people still residing in the Central Kalahari. The � gure that they came upwith was 589. Margaret Nasha, the Minister of Local Government, said in late 2001 thatproviding services in the CKGR was ‘too expensive’ because it was P55,000 per month for589 people. This works out at P98.38 per person per month. The Botswana governmentallowance for destitutes under its Destitutes Policy was 117 Pula per person per month atthe time, for a basket of goods that provides less than 1,700 calories per person per day.It should be noted that this amount is less than the World Health Organisation minimumstandards to maintain health. What this means, in effect, is that the government was notmeeting either its own standards or those of international organisations for health in theCentral Kalahari.113

In November 2001, the Botswana government announced its intention to terminateservices in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve effective from 31 January 2002. Thisdecision was reiterated in a meeting between the Minister Nasha and Ditshwanelo held on

108 Government of Botswana, National Parks and Game Reserves Regulations 2000 – SI No 28 of 2000, BotswanaGovernment Gazette, 27 March 2000, Section 45(1).

109 See, for example, Mogwe, Who Was (T)Here First?, pp. 12–13.110 R. Kahn, personal communication , 2001.111 Statements by Central Kalahari Game Reserve residents, January 2001.112 This was pointed out, for example, by a District Administrator at the opening of the Southern District Council’s

2002 session in Kanye in March 2002.113 I am grateful to Chris Sharp for this point. Personal communication , January 2002.

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13 December 2001. In a letter to Alice Mogwe of Ditshwanelo dated 7 January 2002 theMinister reiterated the government’s decision, stating,

May I add here once more that the Government has the interests of the Basarwa at heart. Thedecision to relocate was taken with many positive things in mind. We as government simplybelieve that it is totally unfair to leave a portion of our citizens undeveloped under the pretextthat we are allowing them to practice their culture. I would therefore urge you, in communicat-ing with the rest of the Negotiating Team, to appreciate the fact that all we want to do is treatBasarwa as humans not game, and enable them to partake of the development cake of thecountry.114

By the beginning of 2002, some of the people in the Central Kalahari were resigned to thefact that their efforts to stay in the reserve were going to be unsuccessful and they werepreparing to move out of the reserve. Others had vowed to stay and were preparing to takedirect action to prevent the removal of the water pump at Mothomelo. There was growingdebate at the local, national and international levels about what should be done in theCentral Kalahari Game Reserve.

For their part, the people of the Central Kalahari and their representative bodies, alongwith support organisations, were continuing to try to get the Botswana government toreverse its decisions on cutting services and carrying out resettlement plans. ‘Water is ahuman right,’ said Roy Sesana, articulating a position that is supported by international law.Numerous meetings were held by the Negotiating Team and Ditshwanelo in late 2001 andearly 2002 to address the issue of the termination of services and the resettlement of peopleoutside of the reserve. Some meetings were held with Minister Nasha, who reiterated herposition that the people of the Central Kalahari had to leave and get water and services fromthe settlements of New !Xade and Kaudwane. As she told a local journalist, ‘They need tointegrate into the mainstream of society.’ She went on to say, ‘They are no longer eatingtubers; they prefer beef.’115

Some Botswana NGOs suggested that resettlement was not such a bad thing if it wouldlead to an improvement in the livelihoods of the people of the Central Kalahari. At the sametime, they expressed grave concern at the fact that the previous resettlement efforts ofMay–June 1997 had not resulted in such improvements. This was underscored when thenext major removal of people from the Central Kalahari occurred in February 2002, whensome 450 people were loaded onto trucks and moved to New !Xade and Kaudwane. By lateFebruary 2002, there were fewer than 70 people left in the Central Kalahari, and even theywere preparing to leave the reserve with whatever belongings they could carry.

For years, discussions had been held about whether or not to � le a legal case in an effortto stop the removals of people from their ancestral territories. By the end of February 2002,when the land claim (‘founding af� davit’) was � led in the High Court of Botswana inLobatse, the vast majority of the people remaining in the reserve had already been resettledby the Botswana government.116 As one former CKGR resident put it, ‘We tried hard, butwe were not able to get the Botswana government or the people supporting us to payattention to our plight. All they did was talk, and no action was taken.’117

The focal points of discussion among San and the organisations with whom they workin southern Africa include human rights, taken here to mean both civil/political rights andsocial, economic and cultural rights. The speci� c kinds of rights that San have targeted asof crucial importance include security rights, subsistence rights and cultural rights. Security

114 CLG.14/8 XIV [145], Letter from Minister of Local Government to Ditshwanelo, 7 January 2002.115 Letshwiti Tutwane, ‘Nasha Adamant Over Basarwa Ultimatum’, Mmegi Monitor, 7 December 2001.116 See Roy Sesana and Keiwa Seglhobogwa and 241 Others vs the Attorney General of the Government of the

Republic of Botswana, Founding Af� davit (Lobatse, High Court of Botswana, 2002).117 Comment by a former resident of the CKGR, personal communication , March 2002).

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rights encompass the rights to be free from torture, execution and imprisonment, orrights relating to the integrity of the person. This set of rights is especially important inthe light of the frequent allegations of torture and mistreatment of suspected ‘poachers’by game scouts and police in Botswana, including the Central Kalahari, as well as bypeople in Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.118 Subsistence rights are those rights relatingto the ful� lment of basic human needs (e.g. water, food, shelter and access to healthassistance and medicines). The denial of the right to hunt and gather is, according to someSan, an example of restrictions placed on subsistence rights. Cultural rights are those rightsof individuals and groups to maintain their cultures, identities, belief systems and lan-guages.119

The San consider that the Botswana government’s efforts to ‘integrate them with themainstream of Botswana society’ are part of a policy aimed at assimilation and therefore,in effect, a strategy of cultural modi� cation. It is for this reason that they feel so stronglythat they should have the right to maintain their own cultures, identities and languages, andto carry out the social, economic and cultural activities that they themselves view as crucialto their long-term survival.

Conclusion

As this article has attempted to demonstrate, there is substantial evidence of politicisationand grassroots social action among the San. They have been outspoken about what they feltto be unfair treatment by the colonial and post-colonial states in Botswana. They sought toengage in political activities, taking part in electoral politics and in some cases running forpolitical of� ce. While some have considered the San ‘voiceless’ because of their positionin Botswana society and their frequently cited reluctance to stand up and make themselvesheard in public meetings, there were numerous cases where San spoke out about what theysaw as discrimination and unfair treatment. They attempted to in� uence government policyon land and natural resources issues, and have been more than willing to assert theiridentities and call for their rights to be respected both on an individual and a collectivebasis.

There were demands by the San for equity and fairness and for people to have a voicein what they see as their own affairs. As Werbner notes elsewhere in this issue, ethnicassertiveness is not merely tribal in Botswana. The San and Bakgalagadi of the CentralKalahari Game Reserve have collaborated extensively in efforts to have their rightsrecognized, not so much as ethnic groups but as people whose customary rights have beenimpinged upon collectively by the state of Botswana. They have attempted to representthemselves as a collectivity whose rights have been abrogated because of who they are andhow and where they live. The people of the Central Kalahari feel that they are being treatedthe way they are because they took a strong human rights stance against the Botswanagovernment and also sought outside help from indigenous peoples’ advocacy organisationsand human rights groups.

118 R. Hitchcock, ‘African Wildlife: Conservation and Con� ict’, in B. R. Johnston (ed), Life and Death Matters:Human Rights and the Environment at the End of the Millennium (Walnut Creek and London, AltaMira Press,1997), pp. 81–95.

119 For discussion of the various kinds of rights, see H. Hannum, Autonomy, Sovereignty , and Self-Determination:the Accommodation of Con� icting Rights (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); C. Nagengast ,‘Women, Minorities, and Indigenous Peoples: Universalism and Cultural Relativity’, Journal of Anthropologica lResearch, 53, 3 (1997), pp. 349–369; R. A. Falk, Human Rights Horizons: The Pursuit of Justice in a GlobalizingWorld (New York, Routledge, 2000).

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Both San and Bakgalagadi are seeking greater recognition of their civil, political, social,economic and cultural rights in Botswana.120 Political mobilisation and empowermentstrategies are by no means easy to implement, as is illustrated by the struggles and debatesthat have occurred among San, Bakgalagadi, Herero and others in western Botswanarelating to the Kuru Development Trust over the past several years.121 There have also beeninternal struggles and factionalism in First People of the Kalahari. Points of tension in thesetwo organisations revolve around ethnic identity, the question of who has the authority tospeak for the group as a whole, and how resources should be allocated among communitiesand group members.

In the case of First People, a major spokesperson for the organisation in recent yearshas been Roy Sesana who, as a G//ana from Molapo in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve,no longer has residence rights in his ancestral territory nor rights to hunt and gather in thereserve. As is the case with the leaders of a number of indigenous organisations that haveopposed the nation-state in various parts of the world, Sesana has been subjected topressures from his own government, including threats of arrest if he enters the CentralKalahari. He points out that, unlike some other indigenous social movements, the Sanmovement has been non-violent and always operated on the principles of consultation,negotiation and information-sharing. As he puts it, ‘The San respect the rights of others; allthat we ask is that others respect our rights.’

The San of Botswana have taken numerous important steps in their efforts to promotetheir land and resource rights and to assert their identities. They have formed their owncommunity-based and national organisations. They have attempted by diverse means tobring about signi� cant social change in Botswana in the ways in which they are treated asminority peoples. They have sought and obtained international support for their work. Inrecent years, they have attempted to expand their ethnic reach to include people inneighbouring countries, a process not unlike the one pursued by the Herero of Botswanaand Namibia and the Kalanga of Botswana and Zimbabwe. They have been ‘active in theirown defence’, as one San put it, and have sought to work with other groups that are partof civil society in Botswana to represent the interests of all people in the country. Theactivities of the San have been described by some Botswana government of� cials andpoliticians as efforts to promote their own rights at the expense of the majority. The Sanreject this assertion, saying that they simply are seeking to promote their identities withinthe larger context of the multicultural state that is Botswana.

The San consider themselves to be both ‘� rst peoples’ and ‘marginalised minorities’.Unlike other relatively well-to-do minorities such as the Kalanga, they view themselves notonly as marginalised but also as a ‘stigmatised minority’ in Botswana.122 Not taking theirmarginalised status for granted, they have, in many cases, sought openly to draw attentionto the dif� culties with which they were dealing, including servitude and the inability to getaccess to land, resources and education on a par with groups representing the majority.

There has been what in effect is a kind of crystallisation of identity on the part of Sanin Botswana. Representatives of San communities have called for recognition of their

120 Overviews of San rights issues are provided in WIMSA, Report on Activities, April 2001 to March 2002(Windhoek, WIMSA, 2002) and International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, The Indigenous World2001–2002 (Copenhagen , IWGIA, 2002).

121 There were efforts by the D’kar Residents Committee, made up of San, Bakgalagadi and Herero, to call intoquestion the structure, management , goals and strategies of Kuru Development Trust in 2000 and 2001; for furtherinformation, see Kuru Development Trust, Activity Report 1999, Plans for 2000 (D’kar, Botswana, 2000); M.Bollig, R. K. Hitchcock, C. Nduku and J. Reynders, At the Crossroads: Evaluation of KDT (Kuru DevelopmentTrust), Ghanzi and Ngamiland Districts of Botswana (The Hague and Harare, Hivos Foundation, 2000); KuruStaff Members, ‘The Kuru Family of Organisations’, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 26, 1 (2002), p. 48.

122 This is a point made by A. Johannes and R. Sesana; see also J. Solway, this issue.

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languages, cultures and identities. The designation of San, Bakgalagadi and others asRemote Area Dwellers only served to underscore the degree to which the nation-state sawthem as separate and distinct. It is not surprising, therefore, that there has been suchnegative reaction to the concept itself and to the homogenised Remote Area DevelopmentProgramme in Botswana.123 At the same time, it must be pointed out that some of theBakgalagadi from the Central Kalahari said that they were beginning to feel as though theinternational community and the government were failing to pay attention to their needsbecause, as they put it, ‘so much attention was focused on the Bushmen’.124 As evidenceof this, they pointed to some of the communications by Survival International, whichaddressed the land ownership and water rights of the Khwe ‘Bushmen’ but not theBakgalagadi.125

Werbner and Solway126 emphasise the importance of trust among members of ethnicgroups and trust in the system – in the case of Botswana, in the bureaucratic apparatus ofthe state. The experience of the San and Bakgalagadi in the Central Kalahari Game Reserveresettlement battle has caused many of these people to lose faith in the Botswanagovernment, which, they feel, was not responsive to their pleas for fair treatment and landand resource rights. They are disappointed that, in spite of the rhetoric about human rightsin Botswana, their rights were ignored, even the most basic right of access to water.

One of the areas of concern for minority peoples who claim indigenous identity relatesto just who these groups and individuals are. As virtually all of the spokespersons for Sanorganisations are well aware, there is no all-encompassing de� nition of the term ‘indige-nous peoples’. Some San, including John Hardbattle and Roy Sesana, pointed to the workof the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues in the 1980s, whichconcluded that four criteria were crucial in the determination of the concept ‘indigenous’:(1) pre-existence, (2) non-dominance, (3) cultural difference and (4) self-identi� cation asindigenous. As the report of the commission noted, the term ‘indigenous peoples’ is usuallyused to refer to those individuals and groups who are descendants of the originalpopulations residing in a country.127

As the San noted in numerous meetings and discussions, indigenous peoples possessethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics that are different from the dominant ornumerically superior groups in the societies of which they are a part. The San seethemselves as different from others in Botswana, and the Batswana see the San as distinct,as well. At the same time, the San see themselves as being treated differentially, and theyhave the sense that their rights are not regarded in the same way as those of other groups,including those with whom they live closely. Some San point to the history of San–Baka-galagadi interactions in western Botswana and say that they were treated as the ‘servants’of the Bakgalagadi, not as equals. The Bakgalagadi, for their part, maintain that theyinteracted in positive ways with the San, and that they helped the San and the San helpedthem in various ways to survive in a challenging environment.

123 Mogwe, Who Was T(H)ere First?; Saugestad, The Inconvenien t Indigenous; see also the discussions in the variousBotswana Society and University of Botswana symposia held in Gaborone and the minutes of the internationalSan conferences (Windhoek, 1992, Gaborone, 1993).

124 Comments by CKGR residents obtained during the course of interviews by First People of the Kalahari,researchers and developmen t workers in Botswana, 2001–2002.

125 Survival International, ‘Botswana Ignores Kalahari ‘Bushman’ Land Ownership’, Urgent Action Bulletin(London, Survival International, 1999); see also the website of Survival International, http://www.survival-in-ternational.org/latest.htm, which addresses how water was being cut off to the ‘Gana and Gwi Bushman villagesin the Central Kalahari’.

126 See Werbner and Solway, this issue.127 Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Indigenous Peoples: A Global Quest for Justice

(London, Zed Press, 1987), p. 6.

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There are some lessons for other NGOs based on the experiences of First People of theKalahari, the Kuru Development Trust and the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities inSouthern Africa. The � rst is that organisations should not be satis� ed solely with meetingsand discussions, whether they are in the form of community (kgotla) meetings ornational-level deliberations on the rights of minority populations. Steps should be taken toensure that the legal rights to land and natural resources are recognised of� cially. Such stepswere taken by the ?Khomani San in their successful effort to have their land rightsrecognised in the area in and around the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in South Africa in the late1990s.128 Among the San and Bakgalagadi of the Central Kalahari, there was discussion foryears about the submission of a formal land claim in court, but this claim was not � led untilafter nearly all the people were removed from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. ‘Timingis everything,’ one former Central Kalahari resident said in an e-mail in March 2002.

Another lesson of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve process is that San NGOs shouldattempt to build constituencies at the grassroots level rather than rely on support primarilyfrom outside groups and organisations. As it turned out, in spite of outspoken support byhuman rights and indigenous peoples’ advocacy groups, the people of the Central Kalahariwere unable to prevent the forced relocation out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Theefforts of some of the outside organisations were seen by the Botswana government asdisruptive and biased, and were taken as indicative of a lack of local commitment and a lowdegree of internal strength and resolve on the part of San organisations. Given this situation,it was not dif� cult for the government of Botswana to use a kind of ‘divide and conquer’strategy. It played on the fears of some members of Kalahari communities, who becameconcerned that certain groups, notably the San, were getting all the attention and supportto the exclusion of non-San groups. As one Mokgalagadi put it, the efforts of First Peopleof the Kalahari and its spokespersons to promote a pan-San identity did the people of theCentral Kalahari a disservice.129 Clearly, it is important for NGOs and their supporters aswell as local communities to appear to the outside world as having coherent, rational andachievable goals that bene� t everyone concerned, not just a speci� c ethnic group or aprivileged elite.

If human rights and social justice are to be promoted at the local, district and nationallevels in Botswana, efforts must continue to be made to promote diversity, to allow localpeople to have a say in development planning, and to ensure that individuals and groupshave the right to make decisions about their own land, natural resources, identities, andpolitical participation.

ROBERT K. HITCHCOCK

Department of Anthropology and Geography, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 126 BesseyHall, Lincoln, Nebraska, NE 68588–0368, USA. E-mail: [email protected]@unlnotes.unl.edu

128 See Robins, ‘NGOs, “Bushmen” and Double Vision’, and R. Chennels, ‘The ?Khomani San Land Claim’,Cultural Survival Quarterly, 26, 1 (2002), pp. 51–52.

129 Former CKGR resident now residing in New !Xade, personal communication , March 2002.

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Documents

We are the First People': Land, Natural Resources and Identity in the Central Kalahari, Botswana