Diamonds Displace Bushmen

The Bushmen of the Kalahari face eviction after the discovery of diamonds under their land.

1 minute read

April 26, 2005, 12:00 PM PDT

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


"The Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana is a vast, arid, yet immensely rich area, which for tens of thousands of years has been one of the chief hunting-grounds in southern Africa for the Bushmen...

But there are diamonds under the CKGR - potentially an important source, controlled by an offshoot of the gigantic De Beers organisation.

[In 1997] the Botswana government decreed that the Bushmen should be moved out of the reserve...Their villages were pulled down, and they were expelled....A group of 240 Bushmen have taken the Botswana government to court, demanding the right to return to their ancestral lands."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan

Monday, April 25, 2005 in BBC News

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