For decades the government of Botswana has been trying to relocate the San people off their ancestral homeland. For those unware the San people are one of the 14 known living ancestral populations for modern humans. They are about 90,000 strong and their homeland spans across Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Angola. While they have faced tremendous pressure from governments to modernize (of which they have complied, to some extent, in the 1950s they gave up their hunter gatherer lifestyle and took on that of agriculture and settlement) they have remained true to their ancient customs and traditions.
However the pressure they faced in Botswana has always been believed to be because of the diamonds present on their lands. The lands were converted to a game reserve in the 1960s in order to preserve the ecosystem in the area. In the 90s the government began to push relocation citing the fact that the people were establishing settlements and damaging the sustainability of the ecosystem.
Earlier this month it would appear the true goals of the government have come to light. The government award a 25 year lease to British mining Giant, Gem Diamonds Ltd. This lease allows them to mine for diamond on the reserve which is also the ancestral land of the San. The mine which is valued at $4.9 billion ($4,900,000,000) is highly unlikely to be compatible with the conservation efforts that are supposed to be going on in the area.
At this time the government continues to try to remove the San and has even gone so far as to bar the tribe’s lawyer from entering the county. It also continues to arrest and harass the San while giving a free pass to big game hunters with money.
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