Source: Survival International
Dear friends,
Government repression is pushing the Bushmen of Botswana's
Central Kalahari Game Reserve to the brink of extinction and we urgently
need your help to stop it.
In yet another devastating blow to the
last hunting Bushmen, we have received news that the Botswana government has
opened up the reserve to fracking companies. The Bushmen have not been
told, let alone consulted.
As a board member of Conservation
International, President Khama will be aware that environmentalists have
strongly criticized the process. Fracking requires vast amounts of water –
already a scarce resource in the Kalahari Desert – and the extraction process
pumps out toxic chemical by-products: this could be the final straw for the
Bushmen whose way of life is irrevocably entwined with their natural
environment.
Many of you will be familiar with our decades-long campaign
for Botswana's Bushmen, who have lived on their ancestral lands since time
immemorial. Ever since vast diamond deposits were discovered in the reserve, the
tribe has been ruthlessly and relentlessly persecuted by their government
– evicted from their homes and forced to live in grim resettlement camps, denied
water, intimidated, arrested and even tortured for subsistence hunting. Now it
seems not just diamonds, but gas, is behind attempts to kick them off their
land.
Harassment is a daily occurrence: in a rule eerily similar to the
hated Pass Laws of apartheid South Africa, the Bushmen are being forced to apply
for temporary permits to visit their families. ‘Overstay’ and they risk being
arrested. And their British lawyer has been barred from the country.
We simply must not let President Khama’s cruel and vindictive
policies bring about the end of the last hunting Bushmen in Africa.
To be able to run our campaigns for the Bushmen and other tribes
worldwide in 2014 we urgently
need your financial support.
With your help we can gather more
evidence to challenge the government, put pressure on the corporations who have
been granted licences to prospect in the reserve, keep the issue in the
headlines and call for more support of our Botswana tourism boycott. The Bushmen
can win. No government can ignore the strength of international opinion forever.
Please
donate now. No amount is too small.
With sincere thanks and best
wishes,
Stephen Corry
Director
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