The reckoning: Who owns our pula?

For more than 30 000 years Bushmen have lived in the Kalahari Desert.  For more than eight years the Republic of Botswana has tried to force them out.  These days, under a quiet stalemate of forced dehydration, the government has declared Bushmen can no longer dig for or carry their own water in what the High Court in Lobatse has recognised as their own homeland.

As someone who has lived for years in both Botswana and equally arid California, I can say that this seemingly obscure policy has profound global implications for the coming dry years ahead.  Going far beyond the issue of indigenous rights, the official ruling sets a precedent for thirsty people in all modern democracies because it raises uneasy questions about individual liberty and limited government, namely: Whose water is it, anyway?