"Rural poverty is a condition not a culture": Mogae

Botswana President Festus Mogae on Monday fired a broadside at the lobby group Survival International (SI), maintaining that "rural poverty, no matter how romanticised, is a condition, not a culture." Mogae was speaking at the opening of a biennial world assembly of CIVICUS, an umbrella body of civic organisations, in the capital, Gaborone. SI has been fighting for the cultural rights of more than 3,000 San or Bushmen people, called "Basarwa" in the local Tswana language, who were removed in 1997 from their ancestral home in the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana. The government has maintained that its decision to relocate the Basarwa was prompted by their need to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the tribe. Mogae, alluding to SI, remarked that "a certain extremist NGO ... has relentlessly attacked this country because of our long-standing, non-negotiable commitment towards ensuring that all of our citizens, including remote-area dwellers of whatever ethnicity, gain access to the benefits of development in the form of schools, clinics and additional opportunities, to become part of our modern mainstream economy." He said: "Like our brothers and sisters elsewhere in this region, we shall also continue to reject the old colonial apartheid myth that insists that some black communities are more indigenous than others." Mogae expressed his concern at the growing dependence of local NGOs on developed countries for funding, which often led to the introduction of programmes that failed to reflect the complex realities of the local situation. "In this, some encroach on the very wellbeing, as well as independent identity, of the developing world through rigid and self-serving interpretations of what supposedly constitutes international norms. In the process they can interfere in the domestic responsibility of any sovereign, democratic government to respond to the internal needs and demands of its own people," said Mogae. According to official sources, the Basarwa relocated from CKGR are expected to legally challenge the government in May. The Basarwa say they were left with no alternative but to leave the CKGR and move to the resettlement villages of New Xade, Kaudwane and Xere on the outskirts of the reserve. The government abandoned consultations that would have identified community-use zones, subdivided along traditional lines into separate areas for each of the main communities and maintained by using indigenous knowledge. Stakeholder organisations believe this would have encouraged more effective community-based natural resource management at the village level, and given the Basarwa access to sites of spiritual importance outside their zone. Provision had also been made by government and various stakeholders for communities to form legally recognised bodies, like trusts, to facilitate management of the community-use zones. Resettling the Basarwa had impacted negatively on them, according to human rights activists. Speaking about conditions prevailing in the resettlement villages, Alice Mogwe, director of the advocacy group Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights, said: "Already, signs of environmental degradation are visible around the settlements – women have talked of having to walk further and further away in search of firewood. Communities also talk of the land as 'belonging to others' – those who had previously inhabited it, and not theirs. The relocation has dislocated the communities; dislocated them from their own environment, without their fully informed consent." She added, "In the two settlements of Kaudwane and New Xade, attempts have been made at skills development, but due to the location, which is greatly removed from markets, it is difficult for such skills to be used." Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS's secretary general said, "The CKGR issue is a complex and multifaceted one. It would be a sheer act of arrogance on our part to assume that, with limited knowledge, we can take an informed position on the issue." Naidoo maintained that the only way forward was further dialogue between the affected communities, Botswana civil society organisations and the Botswana government. "While we recognise that strong language has been used by different parties to the conflict, we do not feel this is fundamentally a reason for people not to engage in dialogue; we see this as a healthy form of democratic engagement." The CIVICUS assembly, convening under the theme "Working Together for a Just World", is taking advantage of its African location to highlight some of the key issues relevant to development in the region. HIV/AIDS, declining voter participation, the growing accessibility of high office, a narrowing media environment and the growing lack of internal democracy in political parties were some of the issues highlighted at the opening.