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| Bushman child, CKGR, Botswana 2004
© 2004 Stephen Corry/Survival |
The Botswana government has admitted that evicted Bushmen are drinking themselves to death in relocation camps.
At least fifteen Bushmen have died in just one camp this year so far.
The government newspaper Daily News confirmed last week that some of
these deaths were due to cirrhosis of the liver (caused by excessive
alcohol consumption) and consumption of illicit brew'. Other causes of
death were listed as cancer, respiratory diseases, malaria and heart
conditions.'
In contrast to their current plight, there were no known deaths from
alcohol consumption in the reserve, when the Bushmen were living on
their ancestral land and drinking was rare.
In the resettlement camps, where they cannot hunt or gather food and
are dependent on government destitute rations', boredom and depression
are rife and many Bushmen of all ages spend much of the time drinking.
The government claims in the Daily News report that its decision to
move the Bushmen off their land emanated from a need to ensure food
security and socioeconomic advancement opportunities.'
However, Bushman organisation First People of the Kalahari said in a
recent press release, Our people are dying in New Xade resettlement
camp… What the government says about New Xade being a place to develop
the Bushmen is not the truth.'
The problems of social breakdown now afflicting the Bushmen are common
amongst other indigenous people in Australia and North America who have
lost their land.
The Innu, a Canadian Indian group suffering sky-high rates of suicide
and alcohol abuse, recently issued a plea to the Botswana authorities,
saying, Please believe us when we tell you that pressurizing people to
leave their ancestral land, and moving them to new settlements to live
like other Batswana, will be sentencing them not to development, but to
decades of misery.'
For more information call Miriam Ross on (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or email mr@survival-international.org
