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| Bushman boys, Namibia
© Mark Håkansson/Survival |
The
organization of the central Kalahari Bushmen has published a
statement denouncing the recent BBC Radio 4 programme 'Crossing
Continents', which accused Survival of 'making things worse' for the
Bushmen.
The Bushmen said, 'Survival has proved it is working for [us] and we
have benefited a lot from their help. Unlike Kuru and Ditshwanelo,
Survival is an organisation who does actually support the people of the
CKGR.'
Descriptions of the programme on its 'Have your say' page include
'hatchet job' and 'ridiculously biased' against the Bushmen. Lord Jones
of Cheltenham, on
the other hand, asserts that 'the Botswana government is simply trying
to supply decent social services such as health and education to all of
its people.'
Explore the programme, and the issues it
raises:
Listen to the Crossing Continents programme here
(Realplayer file) or read a transcript here.
Click here
for Survival's response.
To see the Bushmen's response, click here.
Click here to read an article by Survival's Director Stephen Corry, published in the Botswana newspaper the Sunday Standard.
Many people posted comments after the programme on the BBC's website:
click here
to read them.
BBC TV's Newsnight programme recently broadcast an investigation into
the Bushmen's expulsion: watch it here
(broadband) or here
(dial-up).
One of the issues raised by Crossing Continents was the use of the
phrase 'ethnic cleansing' to describe the Bushmen's expulsion. Click
here to read an article about the
controversy by BBC World Affairs
Editor John Simpson in which the phrase was first used.
Whether the persecution of the Bushmen can be construed as 'close to
genocide' or even genocide itself was also discussed in the
programme. Click here to read an
article that raised similar questions by Dr Mark
Levene, genocide scholar at Southamption University, UK, first
published in the Botswanan newspaper Mmegi.
The Crossing Continents piece included interviews with critics of
Survival's Bushman campaign from the organizations Kuru and
Ditshwanelo, as well as De Beers. Click here to
read an earlier
response to these attacks from the central Kalahari Bushmen.
