From what Councillor Jumanda Gakelebone says, there is no cast-iron guarantee that the rapprochement between the government and the First People of the Kalahari will hold eternally. Beginning late last year, the government began a process to restore essential services to people inside the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve whom it had denied such services for a decade. This follows talks between the government and FPK, a pressure group that represents the interests of game reserve residents. In a marathon legal case that attracted international attention and under the leadership of FPK activist, Roy Sesana, the CKGR residents litigated for their right to return to the game reserve after they were forcibly removed by the government. The outcome was almost a draw because while a three-judge panel ruled that the litigants could return, it also stated that the government was under no obligation to provide basic services to them. For years since and with the support of a London-based pressure group called Survival International (SI), the residents have been unsuccesfully lobbying the government to restore services.
Only litigants in the 2002 court case were given the right of return but Gakelebone, who is the FPK spokesperson, says that all the people who lived in the game reserve should be allowed to go back.
“The issue is far from over because the CKGR is our home and will forever be in our hearts. We still love it, we all want to go back there because it is our home. Until the government respects our collective right of return, I don’t see this issue going away any time soon,” he vows.
The rapprochement follows talks that reportedly brought Sesana face to face with President Ian Khama. Gakelebone’s understanding is that the collective right-of-return issue came up during these talks but was deferred while the parties thrashed out the more pressing issue of restoring the full raft of services that were stopped in 2006. From London the leader of SI, Stephen Corry has also restated his organisation’s demand that all the CKGR displaced should be allowed to return. Last month when Sunday Standard broke the story about the restoration of services, Corry posted the following comment online: “Now Khama needs to announce that any Basarwa evicted from the CKGR may return there with their families as and when they wish.” Khama has not made such announcement.
On its own website, SI has published the sentiments of Michael Dingake who, through his column in Mmegi, has criticised the government for being insensitively legalistic in its interpretation of the High Court judgement.
“The government feels bound by the legality of the [2006 court] ruling, but not the morality of the judgment. The government can’t hide its callousness, nor its determination to win in the end,” wrote the former Leader of the Opposition, former Vice President of the Botswana and Founding President of the Botswana Congress Party who, internationally is more commonly known as an African National Congress activist who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island.
The collective right of return, as conceptualized and articulated by FPK and SI, will be hugely problematic for the Botswana government which spent millions of pula to establish two resettlement villages – New Xade and Kaudwane. Gakelebone represents New Xade in the Gantsi District Council, having successfully ran for that seat in the 2014 general election under an Umbrella for Democratic Change ticket. If the government caves in to the demands of these organisations, New Xade (which has an ultra-modern clinic) and Kaudwane will become ghost towns.
Having customarily fought every CKGR battle side by side, FPK went it alone when it began talks with the government last year. Gakelebone says that his organisation didn’t consult SI when these talks began.
“This was an issue between us and the government, not Survival and the government. Of course Survival has helped where we have asked for its help but we didn’t do so this time around.”
While the councillor is himself satisfied about the restoration of services, he is unhappy about one element of the deal. In expressing his unhappiness, he implicitly disapproves the conduct of FPK’s sole messenger at the talks.
“FPK mandated Sesana to talk with the government but there was never any discussion of him taking a government job,” Gakelebone says.
Sesana is now an Administration Assistant and will work closely with government officials to see to the delivery of services. Gakelebone’s fear is that as a civil servant, the FPK firebrand, who exercised his freedom of speech to the fullest, publicly attacking cabinet ministers and intentionally mispronouncing the names of some, will now be required to be docile.
“As FPK we would have a problem with that. Currently, there is government policy that is not in our interest and we cannot have a situation where our leader is required – by the terms of his employment, to not criticise such policy. I don’t know what Sesana’s contract says but I hope there is nothing in it that says that he cannot criticise the government,” he says.
The FPK spokesperson is not happy about one other thing. The level at which Sesana will be remunerated (B2) tells him that the government is “downplaying” the seriousness of the CKGR issue. He believes that the complexity and sensitivity of that issue necessitates the deployment of someone with a university degree who reports directly to the president. As an Administration Assistant, Sesana will likely report to a social worker in the Gantsi District Council.
“Sesana’s appointment is yet another example that the government still takes our grievances very lightly,” Gakelebone says.
One grievance that refuses to stay in the background relates to property (horses, donkeys, sheep, goats and radio equipment) belonging to CKGR residents that the government confiscated and later auctioned off. A 2005 report posted on the website of the United States’ Department of State says the following about the radio equipment: “During the year the government stopped renewing radio licenses held by the FPK, charging that the vehicle-mounted and hand-held radios were being used by poachers to help avoid wildlife patrols in the CKGR. The FPK said that the radios were vital for the safety of widely scattered families living in the reserve.” The third version (possibly the truthful one) is that FPK used the radios to communicate with both its local and international network of supporters.
