Gaoberekwe’s burial puts CKGR at crossroads

The state burial of Pitseng Gaoberekwe has once again reignited the controversy surrounding the establishment the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). The people of CKGR, bushmen/Basarwa, the indigenous first people of the Kahalari are buoyed up by the tone of President Duma Boko’s new government’s human rights-based approach and hopeful that their wishes for their land will finally prevail. So, the future of CKGR, one of the world’s largest game reserve hangs in the balance.

Welcoming mourners that traversed through the harsh terrain into the desert to come and witness the burial of Gaoberekwe, whose body was stuck in a mortuary for almost three years, Kgosi Lobatse Beslag of New Xade brought up the CKGR’s 63-year-old hot potato. He said Basarwa have always been against the establishment of CKGR, but for over six decades, government administrations, both Colonial and post-independence, ignored, and later violently opposed their wishes for the CKGR.