"The Kalahari Bushmen have appealed to the Pope to support them in their struggle to return to their land, as the Vatican established diplomatic relations with Botswana earlier this month.
A Bushman spokesman said today, ‘We beg the Pope to help, to pray for us so that the government changes its attitude towards us and respects our rights as indigenous peoples of this land.’
The establishment of diplomatic relations was initiated by Botswana’s former president Festus Mogae. He was the architect of the government’s controversial policy to forcibly evict the Bushmen from their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Despite Botswana’s High Court having affirmed the Bushmen’s rights to live in the reserve in 2006, the government of the new president General Ian Khama continues to violate their rights. It has also given the company Gem Diamonds permission to mine diamonds on their land."
ORIGINAL SOURCE: Survival International
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