What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?
Roy Sesana speaks about the Botswana government’s eviction of his people from their ancestral lands Photo: Getty
Survival now recruited an able British human rights lawyer, Gordon Bennett, to launch what was to be the longest case ever to go through the Botswanan courts, which in December 2006 culminated in an extraordinary victory. The Supreme Court ruled that the bushmen’s constitutional right to live unmolested in the CKGR must be upheld. Many hundreds returned to the reserve. In particular the judges also castigated the government for its cruel efforts to shut off the bushmen’s vital water supply.
Despite this, armed guards continued to deny the bushmen access to water. In 2011 Bennett won a court ruling that the main water borehole must be kept open. Still Gaborone’s reign of terror persisted, now focused on the bushmen’s hunting of game. This resulted in a series of vicious episodes where they were arrested, tortured or shot.
Kalahari Bushmen carry a water tank Photo: Getty
This year, thanks to Survival, the bushmen were preparing yet another court case. There were only two problems. One was that the government had now repealed that article of the constitution guaranteeing them their rights. The other was that it barred Gordon Bennett from entering the country.
Now comes the shocking news that, in his enforced absence, the High Court has imposed devastating new restrictions on the bushmen. The only people allowed to live in the reserve will be the 189 named as bringing that victorious case in 2006, and their relatives will be given only short-stay permits to visit them. Further, they will be allowed no more permits to hunt game for food.
In 2010 an ‘eco-tourist’ company was allowed to open a ‘safari lodge’ in the CKGR, complete with a swimming pool full of the water the bushmen desperately needed, with armed guards to keep them away. Now the bushmen are forbidden to hunt for food. In desperation, Survival is calling for tourists to boycott Botswana. But for the moment it looks like game, set and match to Botswana’s President Ian Khama, winner of international awards for his ‘conservation’ work, for whom driving the bushmen from their home has become a personal crusade. Meanwhile, diamond mining, long denied by Gaborone as its reason for expelling the bushmen from their last refuge on earth, proceeds apace. This is a victory for modern civilisation of which no one can be proud.
Christopher Booker is a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph.
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