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| Bushman child, CKGR, Botswana 2004
© 2004 Stephen Corry/Survival |
As the world's diamond chiefs gather in Antwerp this week for a major
international diamond conference, many of Botswana's Gana and Gwi Bushmen' are
asking De Beers and BHP Billiton not to mine on their land until their rights to
return to it and live on it in peace are respected.
The Botswana government evicted the Gana and Gwi Bushmen and their neighbours
the Bakgalagadi from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve
in February 2002. Since the evictions, almost all of the Bushmen's land has been
handed out to mining companies as diamond exploration concessions. De Beers and
BHP Billiton own most of the concessions between them.
Many Bushmen have told Survival there should be no mining on their land in
their absence. Thamanga, a Gwi man from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, said,
Now that the government is pushing us off our land, there shouldn't be
any mining. If I could meet the director of De Beers in Europe I would beg him
to stop mining in Botswana because we have lived on the land for years, and when
something precious on the land is found and we are thrown out, the government is
not respecting our human rights.'
Full colour maps of the concessions boom from the government's Department of
Geological Survey can be downloaded by clicking
here.
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