_Botswana president in racist outburst against Kalahari Bushmen_
[1] In an astonishing outburst, Botswana’s president has described the [2]Kalahari Bushmen as ‘primeval’, ‘primitive’
and ‘backward’. Links:
Speaking at the country’s largest diamond mine, President Khama accused the Bushmen of living a ‘life of backwardness’,
‘a primitive life of deprivation co-existing alongside wild animals’, and ‘a primeval life of a bye [sic] gone era of
hardship and indignity’.
Khama also accused [3]Survival International of ‘embarking upon a campaign of lies and misinformation’, calling the
tribal rights organization ‘modern day highway robbers’. His comments came in response to Survival’s call for a
[4]boycott of Botswana tourism and diamonds over the government’s treatment of the Bushmen. President Khama is a board
member of US organization [5]Conservation International. Links:
In 2002, while Khama was vice-president, the Botswana government forcibly evicted the Bushmen from their ancestral
lands; an act that was later [6]declared unlawful and unconstitutional by Botswana’s High Court, which also ruled that
the Bushmen have the right to live on their lands. Links: 6. http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/bushmen/courtcase#main
Despite the ruling, Khama’s government has continued to prevent the Bushmen from living on their lands. It has banned
them from [7]accessing a well, which they rely on for water, and from hunting for food. At the same time, it has drilled
new wells for wildlife and allowed [8]Wilderness Safaris to erect a luxury tourist lodge with swimming pool on Bushman
land. Over 25,000 people across the world have signed [9]Survival’s petition calling on Wilderness Safaris to move its
lodge off Bushman land. Links:
While the Bushmen have turned to litigation to gain access to their well, the government is in negotiations with Gem
Diamonds to construct [10]a diamond mine on Bushman land. Links:
Khama has previously referred to the Bushmen as ‘an archaic fantasy’, a view that has been echoed by members of his
cabinet. Last month, speaking to the BBC, Botswana’s minister of environment, wildlife and tourism said he didn’t
believe ‘you would want to see your own kind living in the dark ages in the middle of nowhere as a choice, when you know
that the world has moved forward and has become so technological’. The vice-president has also been quoted as
questioning why the Bushmen must ‘continue to commune with the flora and fauna’ when they could ‘enjoy the better things
in life, like driving Cadillacs’.
Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Many countries have laws to stop people insulting other peoples and their
ways of life. There are sinister echoes here of racial superiority which should have no place in any modern democracy.
It’s this thinking which is ‘backward’, not the Bushmen.’
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