Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09GABORONE240
2009-03-24 12:36:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Gaborone
Cable title:  

MOST SAN CHOOSE ASSISTANCE OVER TRADITION

Tags:  PGOV ECON SENV PHUM PINR BC 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO8188
RR RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHOR #0240/01 0831236
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 241236Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY GABORONE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5663
INFO RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GABORONE 000240 

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/S, AF/RSA, DRL
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USAID

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV ECON SENV PHUM PINR BC
SUBJECT: MOST SAN CHOOSE ASSISTANCE OVER TRADITION

REF: GABORONE 235

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. NOT FOR INTERNET POSTING.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GABORONE 000240

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/S, AF/RSA, DRL
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USAID

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV ECON SENV PHUM PINR BC
SUBJECT: MOST SAN CHOOSE ASSISTANCE OVER TRADITION

REF: GABORONE 235

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. NOT FOR INTERNET POSTING.


1. (SBU) Summary. PolOff traveled with a San guide to the
ghost town of Xade, a former San settlement within the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) as well as the village
of New Xade, a new San community near but outside the
reserve. New Xade's population is almost entirely dependent
on GOB assistance and has few economic opportunities. Both
government officials and PolOff's San guide cited lack of
economic opportunities, geographic isolation and a lack of
motivation in the San community to move off of public
assistance as major stumbling blocks to development in New
Xade. Members of the San community are enthusiastic about
new talks with the GOB about economic development,
residency, and hunting rights. End Summary.


2. (U) Ghanzi District is a large, sparsely-populated area
in the west of Botswana, sharing a border with Namibia and
including the vast Central Kalahari Game Reserve. According
to the 2001 census, Ghanzi District has 32,000 residents,
many of whom are categorized as destitute. In February,
PolOff traveled to Ghanzi to meet with government officials,
NGOs, and representatives of the Basarwa minority ethnic
group (who live in Ghanzi District in greater numbers than in
other Botswana Districts). The Basarwa are commonly referred
to as the San or "San Bushmen" in the Western media, although
the San in the CKGR refer to themselves as Kua, which is a
clan name. PolOff's meeting with local government officials
was reported in reftel.


3. (SBU) PolOff spent a day visiting the San communities of
Xade and New Xade. Xade is a now-abandoned village that was
previously inhabited by the San inside the CKGR. New Xade is
the settlement outside the reserve where many of those
resettled San now live. PolOff was escorted by a San guide,
Mr. Jumanda, who was formerly an employee of the First People
of the Kalahari organization (FPK). The FPK is the group who
successfully sued the GOB for the right for San to live
within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Mr. Jumanda was a
party to the lawsuit and is thus permitted to live in the

CKGR, but he currently chooses to live in the town of Ghanzi.



--------------
Living Conditions in New Xade
--------------

4. (U) Arriving in New Xade, a town of about 2500 residents,
PolOff's first stop was New Xade's health clinic. The clinic
is small and has three nurses. As we arrived on a Tuesday,
the day that the doctor visits from Ghanzi, the clinic was
busy with about 25 patients waiting to be seen. The clinic,
one of 22 in Ghanzi District, is able to offer only basic
services like distribution of medicines (including
antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS),childhood
vaccinations, and minor checkups. For more serious medical
needs New Xade residents must travel to Ghanzi, which is
about an hour away along a sandy road. There is no public
transportation between the two towns, although a clinic
vehicle is available to transport medical patients to
appointments.


5. (U) In addition to the clinic, New Xade has a primary
school (the nearest secondary school is in Ghanzi). The
school's name, "Kjoe" means beautiful, and the enthusiastic
headmistress who has been at the school less than a year is
very proud of her school and her 602 students. She is most
proud of the "sevens" test scores that were just reported for
Kjoe. (These are the tests that students take just before
graduating to secondary school). Kjoe had an 80% pass rate,
which was the second highest in the district and the ninth
highest out of the over 80 schools in the region.


6. (U) While the headmistress reports that her school is
well supplied with books, uniforms and food, she does say
that there are many challenges for her. Her largest
challenge is perception by many parents, especially in the
San community, that their children derive no benefit from
attending school. The headmistress says that she spends a
lot of her time promoting community involvement with the
school and convincing parents to re-enroll their children in
school after they drop out. The main reason that the
children drop out is that they are living in the hostels at
the school and miss their family. Boarding students are

GABORONE 00000240 002 OF 003


brought to school at the beginning of term and are only
returned to their families when term ends.


7. (U) At Kjoe, about 300 of the 602 students live in the
hostels, which are segregated by age and sex. The clean but
sparsely furnished bedrooms are set up like large dorm rooms
with small rooms off to the side for studies. There is only
one full-time woman employed to watch the children at the
hostels and she lives in a house close to, but not a part of
the hostel. There was also a sports room and an
entertainment room at the hostel, but neither looked much
used or had much equipment.


8. (SBU) Most people living in New Xade receive food rations
from the GOB and are classified as destitute. The GOB has
encouraged income-generating programs for the residents, but
residents complain that the project ideas are not quite
right, are not workable or are not what they want to do.
Other residents say that they would prefer to keep receiving
the GOB handout. PolOff's guide opined that the San were
"basically becoming a class of welfare recipients." He said
this was caused when they were moved to a town where the San
could not take care of their own needs. But he also added
"the San seem to be losing their drive to take care of
themselves and are growing comfortable with the government
programs."


--------------
Xade: CKGR Ghost Town
--------------

9. (U) Mr. Jumanda, a San guide, took PolOff to visit the
traditional San village of Xade, which has essentially been
abandoned since the San were moved out of the CKGR. Xade is
located about 2-3 hours inside the CKGR on a deep sand road,
which is often impassable during the rainy season. Jumanda
had grown up in Xade and he described what life had been like
for the community. The town was established by the GOB in
the late 1970's and grew to a population of about 700
residents. Though the San had historically lived in small
groups scattered throughout the CKGR, Mr. Jumanda said that
almost all of the CKGR San moved to Xade over time. They
still left Xade for occasional hunting trips, but also raised
goats in town. In addition to houses, the GOB provided a
wide range of government services. There was a primary
school (equipped with teacher's housing),a clinic, a
community development center, government buildings (for
government benefits workers such as food distributors, to
work out of while they were in town once a week),a town
meeting center, a borehole, and two water faucets. To
service all of these facilities the GOB built an airstrip and
(at huge expense) all GOB personnel, food, gas for the
borehole pump and engineers to repair the borehole were flown
in once a week. In 1996, the GOB decided to move the
population from Xade to another settlement outside the CKGR.
Our guide added that the San residents of Xade were not very
upset to be resettled as a "a lot of lions were eating the
donkeys." (Note: One of the reasons the GOB gave for this
relocation was the tremendous cost in providing services to
the community while it was in such a isolated location. End
Note)

-------------- -
San Guide's Views on FPK Lawsuit, Resettlement
-------------- -

10. (SBU) Mr. Jumanda stated that he felt that most of the
San who were interested in living in the CKGR had been a
party to FPK's lawsuit against the GOB and had therefore been
granted the right of return to the CKGR. He did not think
there were many other members of the San community who wanted
to live in the CKGR but were unable to do so. More likely,
he said was that there were some people who would like to
return to the CKGR, but only if the full compliment of
government services that had been available in Xade were
again available. He pointed out that although many people in
New Xade that were wearing "I Love CKGR" shirts and that the
town's football (soccer) team was called the "Tears of the
Kalahari," most of them had not joined in the lawsuit.


11. (U) There are approximately 300 San people who were
party to the lawsuit brought by FPK. By court order they,
their spouses and minor children are allowed to return to the
CKGR to live year round. Normally, however, even those San
allowed to live in CKGR only go into the reserve once the
rainy season begins, usually in December through April. Once
inside the reserve, they live in grass huts and eat

GABORONE 00000240 003 OF 003


watermelons, tubers and millet. During the rest of the year,
most San stay outside the CKGR and reside with family members
who live full time outside the CKGR.


12. (SBU) Mr. Jumanda's main criticisms of the current
situation with the San are that he feels that they are overly
dependent on handouts and are "set up to fail". He also
thinks that there are many unfair policies in place by the
GOB and that the government is not representative? of the
San. He feels that a lot of discrimination still exists
against the San, especially against children in the school
system. Finally, he criticized that the income generating
projects that were set up did not bring as much money as they
should back to the community. He pointed to the example of
Ghanzi Craft, which is a craft shop in Ghanzi that sells the
crafts made by the San, for not sending back all of the money
that customers pay the store for crafts back to the San
community. (Note: PolOff met with the owner of Ghanzi Craft,
who readily admitted that she marked up the craft items by
about 100% from what the San were paid. She said this money
was used for overhead at the store, including rent, salaries
for three full time employees and a computer systems for
inventory control.)


13. (SBU) However, even with these criticisms, the guide was
enthusiastic about the prospect of renewed talks between the
GOB and the San people. If talks are renewed, then Mr.
Jumanda plans to again join with the FPK and work within the
CKGR as a community organizer. His goal, he says, would be
to help build consensus within the San community to help with
negotiations with the GOB. In his opinion, the main issues
he would like the government to discuss are hunting rights
within the CKGR, providing boreholes for the San in the CKGR
and equity issues for San living outside the CKGR. Mr.
Jumanda was also enthusiastic about government plans to run
electricity to New Xade, to add running water to the houses
in New Xade and the expansion of New Xade's clinic. He notes
that New Xade was getting more infrastructure improvements
than other San settlements and wondered if New Xade was
getting these items only because they were raising the issues
more loudly than other settlements.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------

14. (U) COMMENT: The GOB is now offering a choice for
members of the San community. For those members who fought
for their right to return to the CKGR, they may live in the
CKGR, but must do so without GOB-provided infrastructure or
health and education resources. The GOB argues that it is
simply too costly to provide extensive government services in
a remote location like the CKGR. The San's second choice is
to live outside the CKGR, in settlements or in towns of their
choosing, and take advantage of the full complement of GOB
services.


15. (SBU) It appears that the San began moving a away from
their traditional lifestyle when they began living in the
settlement of Xade within the CKGR, where they began to grow
accustomed to GOB services being provided and started to
pursue more farming activities. This has resulted in a split
in the San community, where younger members are more
accustomed to a more modern way of living and seem less
willing to live in a traditional manner while older members
of the community still embrace the traditional way of life.
It seems likely that as the older generation passes on that
the younger San will be less concerned with living a
traditional lifestyle, but will look more towards government
supported protections of San traditions, rights to hunt and
continued government support though equalizing opportunities
and providing services.


16. (SBU) Though it is highly unlikely that the GOB will
offer to provide services in the CKGR, the government would
be wise to increase its efforts to improve economic
opportunities and continue its infrastructure improvements to
San communities like New Xade and to help combat the feelings
of marginalization. If the proposed talks between the San
and the GOB take place, and don't become the heated arguments
that occurred in the past, this could also go a long way
toward easing tensions between the San community and the GOB.
Post will report on these discussions as appropriate. END
COMMENT.
NOLAN