Abigail Disney
Abigail Disney was one of my travel mates. We often talked into the night about the children we love, the music that moves us, the ideas that inspire us. She was great at spotting birds, I was good at spotting the hoofed creatures. We shared the thrill of being on the desert and we fell in love with the people we met, the people who could dig down below what seemed like a dry brittle bush and find with joy, a potato rich with nutrients and full of thirst quenching moisture. I so appreciate the way in which Abby has compiled what we learned on this trip.

Abigail writes:
The reasons the government gives for forcibly removing (emphasis on the word "forcibly"--some have been beaten, one killed, all have been bullied in a variety of ways) seems to shift with the wind, and we all know from experience that shifting justifications are usually an indications that there's another agenda in there, well hidden.
          
We've been told, variously, that the Bushmen are being removed because they need to be "developed" and that development is incompatible with living on a game reserve.  We've been told that the Bushmen are no longer living "traditionally" and so no longer legally can claim the right to live there.  We've been told that the CKGR is for animals and tourists only, and that the Bushmen are being removed for their own safety.  We've been told that the goats they keep, as a back-up food supply because they are not allowed to hunt game year-round as they would have traditionally, expose the CKGR animals to diseases and the landscape to overgrazing.  And we've been told that the Bushmen's presence in the CKGR is a threat to the long term well-being of the eco-system.
          
Each of these rationalizations appears at first to have merit, but all of them collapse under the weight of the tiniest scrutiny. The fact is that these people trace their origins in the land 60,000 + years, and if they did not know how to steward it, they would have disappeared from the face of the earth long before we would ever have had the opportunity to come to know them.  And in those limited ways in which they have given up some of their traditions it has only been because the government has forced these changes upon them.
          
And this, in spite of the fact that the CKGR itself was set aside specifically to protect the Bushmen and their way of life, and in spite of the fact that the Constitution of Botswana protects their right to this land in perpetuity. All these people want is to live in peace and harmony with the land of their ancestors (and if recent DNA studies are true, they are ALL OF OUR ancestors) and not die slowly in despair and squalor in the hideous resettlement camps set aside for them by the government.  

They are not asking for mineral rights. They are not asking not to be educated or governed.  They are not asking for much at all.

What do the government's actions tell us?  The government is currently trying to change its constitution so as to divest these Bushmen of their traditional lands. The government has sent police and wildlife officials into the remaining Kalahari communities to beat, intimidate and harass the last remaining inhabitants.  They have closed precious boreholes, separated families, restricted the free movement of the Bushmen and anyone who vocally supports them, and as of last week they have closed the entire CKGR, ostensibly for "administrative" purposes (this is like "closing" Yellowstone!) while simultaneously stepping up the removals, clearly while no one can possibly be watching.  

And finally, not long after the removal policy was announced, the government gave away diamond concessions accounting for 2/3 of the CKGR to their oldest partners in that business, including, not surprisingly DeBeers and its Botswanan affiliate Debswana. Whether or not diamonds are at the heart of this issue it is hard to say, but we cannot underestimate the role plain-old, garden-variety racism plays--historically the Bushmen have been reviled by whites as well as by black tribes all over Southern Africa--tortured, traded as slaves and even hunted as animals.  As recently as the 60's, one could buy a license to hunt a Bushmen as game!
          
I came to Botswana because I wanted to listen and learn.  I had no intention of coming home an advocate.  If I am, it is because the Botswana government turned me into one, and because at a fundamental level I care about the gross unfairness of changing the rules in the middle of the game and removing a constitutional protection for the sake of short term political or financial ends.  

Right now, as you sit here and read this, the last of the Bushmen are starting to die, with no food or water, and no ability to call out for help. We are not talking about a large group of people here.  But we are talking about a 60,000 year old culture snuffed out willy-nilly, and only because no one cares enough to object.