Justice prevails

In 2006, the Bushmen took their eviction to the courts in Botswana with an intention to gain back access to their land. The court ruled in their favor declaring that the evictions had been illegal. The government of Botswana, however, never fully complied with the judiciary provisions to comply with the reinstitution of the Bushmen's imploration. This led to another court case in 2010 on the same issue, which was mainly hinged on access to water sources within the prohibited Central Kalahari game reserve.

Judge Lakhinder Walia presided over the 2010 case and granted a ruling in favor of the government much to the dismay of the Bushmen. In early 2011, an appeal was lodged and a panel of five judges overturned the earlier ruling of Judge Walia by declaring that the treatment that the government had conferred on the Bushmen was unconstitutional and degrading to humanity.

The African Commission on Human and People's Rights and the United Nations had earlier condemned the government of Botswana on its handling of the situation, entitling it a contravention of basic human rights. The ruling on the appeal highlighted that the Bushmen had a right to use their old wells which the government had banned, that they had right to sink new wells on the contested land, that the government's treatment of the Bushmen was "degrading" and the government had to pay the costs of the appeal. Indeed the long and painstaking process of litigation and contention finally had respite.

It is however critical to note that the contention between commercial considerations and the facet of human rights is really as sensitive and close shaven as exhibited in the Bushmen and Botswana Government issue. Supply and access to clean water is a United Nations declared fundamental right. It is however the reality of these human rights based instruments in the interactive world of geo-economies that makes this Botswana case a typical indication of the wider global perspective.

The world is faced with the momentous challenge of balancing out the consideration of both money and human life without over-sacrificing the other. In fact money is intended to support human life and therefore advance the human rights infrastructure. However, the complexity is at the point when a certain portion of the population whose lifestyle and rights are disregarded or flouted for the sacrificial benefit of the totality of a nation. Should the aggregation of national interests ever be at the expense of an individual or particular group? Is an injury to one ever an injury to all?

The Botswana case makes it even more astonishing because it is about an ethnic group who in essence are vulnerable and not equally integrated into the modern society. Yet at the same time such a group represents the oldest inhabitants of the very Batswanaland from which they are being subjected to a breach of one of the United Nations' human rights fulcrum. Perhaps these are lessons for posterity on just how to be anchored in the consideration of the criticality of both economic development and the fundamental rights of the people, especially the indigenous population. At least where there are functional judiciary systems, their rights will always be projected and therefore upheld.

(The writer is Senior Researcher of Africa Reform Institute, and Zimbabwe Desk Director of Africa Public Policy Research Institute)