Sunday Standard - Online Edition
Botswana's ban on hunting is a "calculated
move to starve" the Bushmen off their land, Bushman leader Roy Sesana
tells the Sunday Standard.
Basarwa activist Roy Sesana on Monday accused President Ian Khama and
Environment, Wildlife and Tourism Minister Tshekedi Khama of an attempt
to starve Basarwa out of Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) by
imposing a hunting ban in the Reserve.
Sesana said the latest development to impose a hunting ban was designed
in such a way that it applied to various places across the country but
it was aimed at keeping Basarwa out of their ancestral land.
According to Sesana, he regrets celebrating a 2006 landmark Lobatse High
Court judgement that had ruled in their favour in a case in which they
were challenging their relocation from CKGR by the government.
When the Court ruled in their favour eight years ago, Sesana had said
the decision was a major victory for his people, but in an interview
this week, Sesana described his 2006 celebration as having deceived
himself adding that he apologises to his tribesmen and Batswana
sympathetic to Basarwa’s cause.
“Remember that during the forced relocation, my people were loaded in
trucks like goods and when the Court ruled that the relocation was
illegal, government did not see it fit to bring them back into CKGR in
the same trucks,” he said.
‘Hunting ban aimed at starving Basarwa out of CKGR’- Sesana
