Government of Botswana Asks International Community to Assist on Issues Relating to San People
The government of Botswana has appealed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the international community to assist on issues relating to San people (Bushmen), APA learns on Wednesday in Gaborone.
The appeal was made last week when the UN Human Rights Commission held meetings in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss reports from both the government and local NGOs on the human rights situation in this country.
The government has been accused of human rights abuses related to the treatment of the Bushmen in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve-CKGR.
The spokesperson of the Bushman pressure group, First Peoples of the Kalahari, Gakelebone Jumanda, has accused the government of intimidating and torturing Bushmen with the intention of moving them out of the Reserve, their ancestral land.
He said this was a clear sign of the government’s failure to respect Bushmen’s human rights.
Human rights organizations accuse the government of disregarding Bushmen’s rights to live and hunt in the Reserve where they have lived for over 30,000 year.
The Botswana government relocated them in the mid 1990s into newly created settlements.
A court confirmed the resettlement was forceful thus unconstitutional.
After the San were prohibited from accessing drinking water inside the Reserve through bore holes, the Botswana High Court ruled in January 2011 in their favor, describing the case as a "a harrowing story of human suffering and despair."
Source African Press Agency
African News from NetNewsPublisher.com
Category: Africa
