Botswana President Vows to Restore Bushmen Rights
Botswana’s newly elected president, Duma Boko, has vowed to reinstate the rights of the Bushmen, an indigenous tribe, following a long-standing dispute over their ancestral lands.
This commitment was recently emphasized during the burial of Pitseng Gaoberekwe, which had been postponed for over two years due to lengthy legal battles preventing the family from using their ancestral burial site in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Boko, a human rights lawyer prior to his presidency, aims to allow the Bushmen to resume hunting and reclaim their rights, signaling a potential shift in government policy towards indigenous communities
The president’s announcement came in the same week as the Botswana government allowed the Bushmen to bury Pitseng Gaoberekwe who died in December 2021 on the group’s ancestral land, ending a drawn-out impasse.
The courts had barred the family from burying Gaoberekwe in his ancestral home in the vast and arid Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), from which most of his relatives were forcibly removed to protect the wildlife zone.
International tribal rights advocacy group Survival International had argued the Bushmen were pushed out of the game reserve because of diamonds in the area.
The previous government denied those allegations, saying it wanted the Bushmen to move closer to modern amenities and life.
Before Gaoberekwe’s burial Tuesday, President Duma Boko, who took power six weeks ago, promised to restore the Bushmen’s rights, including allowing them to resume hunting wild animals.
