Gaoberekwe’s burial puts CKGR at crossroads
Thalefang Charles | Wednesday December 18, 2024 13:18
The state burial of Pitseng Gaoberekwe has once again reignited the controversy surrounding the establishment the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). The people of CKGR, bushmen/Basarwa, the indigenous first people of the Kahalari are buoyed up by the tone of President Duma Boko’s new government’s human rights-based approach and hopeful that their wishes for their land will finally prevail. So, the future of CKGR, one of the world’s largest game reserve hangs in the balance.
Welcoming mourners that traversed through the harsh terrain into the desert to come and witness the burial of Gaoberekwe, whose body was stuck in a mortuary for almost three years, Kgosi Lobatse Beslag of New Xade brought up the CKGR’s 63-year-old hot potato. He said Basarwa have always been against the establishment of CKGR, but for over six decades, government administrations, both Colonial and post-independence, ignored, and later violently opposed their wishes for the CKGR.
Interestingly the establishment of the CKGR by the British colonial government in 1961 is said to have been chiefly meant to be used by Basarwa to practice their traditional lifestyle. This is according to a University of Botswana research journal by Goemeone Mogomotsi and Patricia Mogomotsi titled, ‘Recognition of the Indigeneity of the Basarwa in Botswana: Panacea against their Marginalisation and Realisation of Land Rights?’.
The paper says: “This proposal [to establish CKGR] was spearheaded by a [British} colonial government official, George Silberbauer, who came up with a plan to set up a reserve for the use of the Basarwa to practice their traditional lifestyle.”
The CKGR, which covers an area of 52,800 square kilometres (10% of Botswana’s total area) was initially conceptualised as a kind of ‘people's reserve’ for exclusive use by Basarwa to continue their lifestyle of hunting and gathering as well as to address their subjugation and loss of land.
After independence, the then ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) through all its five presidents, was fiercely opposed to the concept and even attempted to completely remove humans from inside the CKGR claiming they were a drain on financial resources. This led to the widely documented ancestral land conflict that featured many court battles including Botswana’s longest and most expensive court case, the so called Sesana versus Attorney General of 2006 – which ended on this day, 18 years ago.
The immediate past administration of Mokgweetsi Masisi successfully opposed the burial of an elder on his ancestral home of Metsiamanong inside the CKGR. Gaoberekwe’s body was prevented by Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) from entering the CKGR leading to a stalemate that saw his body stay almost three years in a mortuary.
President Boko, who has been in the trenches with Basarwa fighting their expensive court battles against previous government, this week delivered on a promise to bury Gaoberekwe at his home in the CKGR and expressly told Basarwa that CKGR is their ancestral land. The burial coincided with International Human Rights Day and once again Boko reiterated his stance about his government’s human rights approach. He narrated the human rights abuses Basarwa had to put up to during their fight for their rights. He reminded CKGR residents how government in 2005 even had conveniently removed the clause (Section 14, 3, C) in the Constitution that protected Basarwa rights inside the game reserve.
When the people of CKGR pleaded with him about their urgent needs like hunting permits and water, Boko told them that they (the people) are the ones in charge.
“Puso e mo diateng tsa lona. Ke lona le laelang gore ago dirwe jaana. Rona re tetse ha go thaloganya gore lare re reng?” (Power is in your hands. You are the ones who should direct as what should be done. We are here to listen so that we act at your commands).
The biggest want by the people of CKGR is freedom to access their ancestral land and practice their traditional lifestyle of hunting and gathering. This lifestyle inside the CKGR (or any game reserve) has been outlawed. Basarwa have been tried as poachers while hunting inside the CKGR. And human rights activists, locally and internationally have been fighting against this treatment of Basarwa.
“We are still hunter-gatherers. We want to be recognized as hunter-gatherers. If you say don’t hunt, it means don’t eat. If you are going to ban hunting, you have to consult us. You’re going to turn us into poachers. But hunting for us has never been about poaching. We hunt for food,” Jumanda Gakelebone, Mosarwa activist has said.
“We have survived for millennia in one of the world's driest areas, but they treat us as stupid. We are hunter-gatherers yet we get arrested. We are not allowed to hunt but others can,” said Gakelebone.
From the events of December 10, 2024, at Gaoberekwe’s funeral, it appears that President Boko is the Biblical Moses that Basarwa have been waiting for to take them back home into the CKGR.
Member of Parliament for Gantsi, Noah Salakae, reiterated Boko’s words saying Basarwa should know that CKGR is their land. Speaking in a brief interview, Salakae, who is also the Minister of Works and Transport said: “They (Basarwa) should know that the new administration supports their cause for land rights. There are private game farms around CKGR where owners hunt freely and so Basarwa should know that CKGR is theirs, ke plaas ya bone”.
This major government shift would mean that the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, which is responsible for the management of the reserve and protection of natural heritage, must change its hardline approach towards Basarwa and respect their freedom of movement inside the CKGR.
On Tuesday Minister of Environment, Wynter Mmolotsi said his ministry would be assessing CKGR issues in order to make changes so that they too are in line with the new administration’s human rights governance approach.
“We are going to have to find a working solution for a balance between human rights and animal rights or natural heritage,” said Mmolotsi in an interview.
So, the CKGR, as we know, could soon change and even possibly transform back to Silberbauer’s original concept, focussing on protecting the cultural heritage of the indigenous Bushmen.
The Ministry of Local Government and Traditional Affairs, which this week reported that there are now 443 people living inside the CKGR, would have to work with Environment ministry to tackle the ongoing conflict between conservation and the livelihoods of Basarwa living within the CKGR.