Exiles of the Kalahari

If New Xade is progress, the Bushmen want none of it. But whether they still have any claim to their Kalahari homeland is at the heart of the case currently before Botswana's High Court. The lawsuit, brought by Sesana and 243 others, contends the Bushmen have the right to live, hunt, and gather freely in the Kalahari, which they say was given to them by God -- not to mention the constitution. A decision is expected early this year.

Given the conflicting rationales for the relocations, many observers keep coming back to the one most strongly denied: diamonds. "We've picked through all the reasons they gave,” says Survival International's Corry, "and absolutely none of them made any sense at all. The only thing left is diamonds.”

The likelihood of finding diamonds in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is clear -- draw a line between Botswana's record-producing Orapa and Jwaneng mines, and it runs straight through the reserve and the former Bushman community of Gope.

In November 2002, just before the last evictions, President Mogae proclaimed, "There is neither any actual mining nor any plan for future mining inside the reserve.” But immediately following the removals, virtually the entire reserve and surrounding countryside was leased out by the Ministry of Mineral Resources. Along with Debswana, BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company, has leased some 78,000 square kilometers in and near the reserve, backed by $2 million in loan guarantees from the World Bank. (In November, a World Bank ombudsman began investigating whether that loan violates the bank's policies on protecting indigenous peoples.)

Botswana's government has lashed out at Survival International and their PR efforts linking the removals to diamonds. Foreign Affairs Minister Akolang Tombale -- who does double duty as the deputy chairman of Debswana -- calls Survival International workers "terrorists,” and claims that the Bushmen campaign is merely a fundraising gimmick. The British group makes for a much easier opponent than, say, the Northern Cape Khoisan (Bushmen) Council of South Africa, which passed a declaration demanding "De Beers and the Botswana Government…rescind their decision to evict” the Bushmen, which it considers a "human rights atrocity.”

Despite their insistence of altruistic intentions behind relocating the Bushmen, however, government officials are blunt about where cultural heritage and wildlife preservation fall on the list of national priorities. "If we can discover a lot of diamond deposits in any part of this country,” Minister of Local Government Michael Tshipinare told me over a cup of tea, "whether it is in a game reserve or outside, and it is minable -- we're going to mine it.”

To see the land at the center of this dispute means a two-day drive, bouncing along a sandy track cut through thorny scrub that occasionally gives way to shallow pans, where skittish wildlife gather to graze. It's along this road that as many as 400 Bushmen, facing a life of subsidized despair in the resettlement camps, have been slipping back to their homelands, enduring harassment by government scouts and risking arrest.

More than 130 miles from the nearest pavement, I come upon the rebuilt village of Molapo, a circle of thatch huts now home to about 70 men, women, and children. In the shade of an acacia tree, clad in an assortment of cast-off overcoats, too-big shoes, and the occasional animal-hide wrap, the women sort roots and fruit while an aged, infirm hunter sits erect in a place of honor, children playing at his feet.

As their stories tumble out, it's clear that if life was difficult in the reserve before, it's worse now. The hunting that plays such a critical part of their diet and culture has been outlawed, and so is done furtively, if at all. Government scouts regularly harass residents, something returnee Gakeitswe Gaorapelwe knows well. He was one of 13 men arrested for poaching, and he says he spent three days handcuffed to the bull bars of a wildlife officer's Land Rover. (The charges were later dropped for lack of evidence.)

Yet despite the challenges, when asked whether staying is worth it, the entire community responds: "Yes, yes. All of us.”

"The roots here are better,” says Gaorapelwe. Reaching into his pocket, he offers me a finger-sized branch. Peeled, it reveals a soft, sweet fiber that tastes like yam. When asked why they were relocated, he says, "The government has seen some diamonds here; that's why it decided to take us out. I don't think it, I know it -- I was told that” by a district official. To my surprise, Molapo's residents tell me they would even be willing to work in the mines -- anything, they say, so long as they can stay.

Remaining in the Kalahari is essential to the Bushmen's "survival as a distinct people,” the United Nations Human Rights Commission warned in 2002. What is yet to be seen is whether Botswana's High Court will judge this culture, and these people, worthy of preservation.