Botswana

African peasants highlight struggles at global meeting

Peasants across Africa are intensifying their struggles against land grabs and other harmful policies that promote industrial agriculture. At a recent international conference organised by the world’s largest peasant movement, Via Campesina, African peasants had opportunities to share their experiences of struggle and to learn.

“It is amazing to see how linked our struggles are,” said Nicolette Cupido from the Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty Campaign (FSC) in South Africa.

Botswana - Bushmen banned from using own water

Survival International reported on March 19 that the government of Botswana has banned Bushmen in the Kalahari Game Reserve from using their own water. The government refused the Bushmen’s request to install, at their own expense, a pump at a borehole on their land. The government justified its decision by arguing that the land is owned by the government. In December, Botswana’s High Court ruled that the 2002 eviction of the Bushmen from their land was illegal and that they had a right to live there. According to Jumanda Gakelebone of the Bushman organisation First People of the Kalahari, “The court said we could go back to our land, but now we see that the government is doing everything it can to stop us. Why else would it stop us using a borehole that nobody else is using? Without water we cannot live in the Kalahari.” For more information, visit <http://www.survival-international.org>.

Bushmen returning home in Botswana

Several Bushmen families who had been evicted from their land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve returned on January 12 following an historic December 13 court victory against Botswana's government. The High Court ruling deemed the government's