How Survival answers its critics

STEPHEN CORRY | Thursday November 4, 2010 00:00

I would now like to respond to the criticisms we get from those who support the government's position.

Some will assert that we have no 'right' to 'interfere' in Botswana affairs. My first response is that we would be delighted if local NGOs were solving this problem - after all, they have been paid to for years - but under the control of Ditshwanelo they have achieved nothing.

I would go further, there is no evidence that Ditshwanelo actually wants the Bushmen to be able to live on their own land in their own way. Much more important than this, is that human rights are everyone's business, yours as well as mine.

That's the whole point of them, and the reason why there have to be international NGOs trying to defend them. If governments are not called to account by the world community, then they get away with all kinds of crimes. Botswana, which is more than happy to take outside money for 'conservation' and other initiatives, must be prepared for international criticism, whether it likes it or not.

Some will argue that as Survival is based in the old colonial capital, that somehow makes our arguments less valid. Well, like Amnesty International, Survival is headquartered in London, but has offices in many other countries, its workers and volunteers are from at least 13 nationalities, and its supporters are found in over 80 nations.

It has grown very quickly indeed over the last couple of years and a majority of our several million website visitors are from the United States of America (US).

I hope that no one will claim that we don't know what we're talking about because we use the term 'Bushmen', and that it's insulting.

As we have made clear so many times, there is no good name for these peoples, and they often tell us they find 'Bushmen' less insulting than 'Basarwa'.

A criticism which might seem more sensible than all these is that Survival's dual boycott - diamonds and tourism - risks worsening the situation for Botswana's poor citizens. In fact that isn't true either.

Nearly two generations after the first diamond finds, half the Botswana population still lives on less than US$2 per day. The real benefits of both diamonds and tourism remain firmly in the hands of the country's small elite - as they well know.

The government has often tried to personalise this issue and focus on me as an individual: I remember descriptions of me such as 'liar, devil and loose cannon', which made headlines. In reality, the boycotts are the work of Survival as an institution, not of any individual.

I know that many ordinary people in Botswana have enormous sympathy for the Bushmen's predicament and cannot understand why the President simply does not ensure they are treated fairly. Survival never confuses the country as a whole, largely peaceful, law-abiding and respectful, with its government. By the way, Survival is nearly as old as Botswana and is not going to disappear; nor are the boycotts, until the Bushmen are treated fairly.

I should make it clear that Survival's role is not to try and appeal to the government to do the right thing by the Bushmen. That has been tried repeatedly and has had no effect whatsoever.

The treatment of the CKGR Bushmen has already been widely condemned by countless people and institutions, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the UN, the US government, 'alternative Nobel prize' winners, the BBC, and so on.

Survival has doubled its outreach over the last year and is now growing quickly. Our information is routinely sought by millions.

Our role is now to reach people as widely as possible and to let diamond-buyers, tourists, and the people of Botswana make up their own minds, informed by the facts, rather than by government propaganda, which has long been deeply disrespectful to the country's first inhabitants.

Finally, Survival used to go to great lengths to ensure the Bushmen fully supported our work on their behalf; many of our actions were initiated at their request. That is no longer the case. Park guards have recently been threatening Bushmen, saying they had 'been sent to kill them'.

 We have therefore decided that it is no longer appropriate for Survival to seek Bushman support for our actions: it exposes them to too much risk.

 For this reason, Survival's decisions about the boycotts have not been referred to anyone in Botswana, and will not be. We, and we alone, take responsibility for them.