The Gope Gem Diamonds Mine: a jewel or blight in the history of Basarwa resistance? by Sunday Standard Commentary 07-09-2014 Sunday Standard/ The Telegraph This week, Gem Diamonds opened a diamond mine at Gope inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. To put the whole event into context it is important to go back into history. The deposits were discovered in the early 1980s. De Beers determined at the time that it was not going to mine the resource, primarily because for a company of its size, the economics, especially early then, showed that it was not a worthwhile commercial adventure. A decision was taken to sell the deposits. And Gem Diamonds bought the resource. Under normal circumstances, the opening of the mine should have been a milestone to celebrate the achievement and human tenacity it has taken to conquer the logistical nightmares of not just moving the sands of the Kalahari but also the strong will to manage what is unmitigated logistical nightmare just ferrying supplies and staff to and fro. Yet not everybody is celebrating. Thus when Gemstone opened the mine on Friday, the world was bound to take notice. It is after-all a big deal. Survival international, that nemesis of Botswana Government sent a short message through its director Stephen Corry: “When the Bushmen were illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of ‘conservation’, Survival cried foul play – both we and the Bushmen believed that, in fact, diamond mining was the real motivation for kicking the tribe off their territory. Government and its cronies vigorously denied these accusations, but finally we have been proven correct. Meanwhile, organizations such as Conservation International continue to laud President Khama for his environmental credentials and turns a blind eye to his human rights abuses.” Botswana Government likes to say outsiders are interfering with how Botswana should be run. It is an accusation that has been repeated for as long as the CKGR standoff has been going on. But it simply has refused to stick. In-fact President Ian Khama said as much when he opened the mine on Friday. It is an alibi. And we are doing a great job to choose charitable and polite words to describe the President. We note that when the mine opened on Friday, key stakeholders were conspicuously absent. No residents of Gope had been invited. And there are quite a few of them still alive. Also not present were residents of other communities outside of Gope. The vague answer given is that they are not affected by the mine. In fact no Basarwa were at the official opening, save for a few like Lobatse Beslag a so called chief, who in favour of drawing salaries and other forms of largesse from government has since opted to turn their back against their communities. We hope this was an oversight on the part of organizers and not a deliberate plan by either Government or mine owners to treat Basarwa as now extinct especially after such a long and bruising fight with authorities over their resettlement from the Reserve; the fight which had as its leitmotif the diamonds discovery at Gope. From where we are, it cannot be enough to say that because the closest settlement to the mine is forty five kilometers away from the mine operations. For any anyone who understands our culture as a people, forty five kilometers away from our homes is considered as our backyard. That holds particularly true for communities inside the CKGR who survive on an elegantly intertwined relationship with their environment. These are people who travel long distance; much more than forty kilometers, to find food but also to find proximity with their ancestors. We appreciate that forty kilometers may seem a very long distance for other cultures especially in Europe. But that is not so with Batswana, especially of Basarwa extraction. We are of the view that the exclusion of Basarwa at this event was a deliberate action to exclude them because they are viewed not only as an irritation but also an eyesore. Their presence at the official opening ceremony would have been a reminder to many of the international dignitaries present that Basarwa are, notwithstanding the drawn out onslaught by their government continue to exist. The mine owners and indeed Government Botswana did not want to contend with a sorry sight of these tribal people who as we speak are ravaged by poverty, disease, all of those now made worse by draconian and inhuman government decision to impose blanket ban on hunting. It is not coincidence that the name Gope has been changed to Ghaghoo. The change in name, while clothed with all the niceties of public relations are part of efforts by Botswana Government, acting in consonance with mining investors to erase anything that many conjure memories of resistance by Basarwa of the CKGR. This in our opinion is akin to cultural genocide.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:52:14 +0000
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