Botswana's High Court has ruled that hundreds of San had been wrongly evicted from ancestral hunting grounds in the Kalahari desert and should be allowed to return.
The court ruled 2-1 for the San in the key issues of the case, which saw Africa's last hunter-gatherers take on one of the continent's most admired governments in a dispute over diamond rich land and development priorities.
Judge Mpaphi Phumaphi, who delivered the swing vote in the case, said that Botswana had been wrong to force the San out of the Kalahari reserve by cutting off their livelihood.
"In my view the simultaneous stoppage of the supply of food rations and the stoppage of hunting licences is tantamount to condemning the remaining residents of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to death by starvation," he said.
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Wearing a waistcoat of animal hide over his shirt and tie, Roy Sesana, head of a San pressure group, did a little dance on coming out of the courtroom.
"My heart today is nice!" he said in English, adding through an interpreter: "My ancestors told me I was going to win."
Jumanda Gakelebone, another activist, said: "I'm very very glad. I'm expecting to go back tomorrow."
The San's lawyer, Gordon Bennett, said the court had opened the way for the San to return to lands that their ancestors have lived on for about 20 000 years.
Chief government lawyer Sydney Pilane stressed that the state had not lost outright because the ruling did not require it to provide essential services to the San in the reserve. He said the government might appeal.
The court said it saw no grounds for out-of-court claims by the San that the government and diamond giant De Beers wanted to clear the land for diamond mining - the basis for a publicity push by Western pressure groups who've backed the Bushmen's cause.
Activists say more than 1 000 San want to go back to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, an area of desert the size of Belgium which the government has set up as one of Africa's largest protected nature reserves.
Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo, delivering a minority opinion ahead of the verdict, said the case should be dismissed.
But Judge Unity Dow disagreed, saying Botswana's government had "failed to take account of the knowledge and culture" of the San when it expelled them. "In 2002 they were dispossessed forcibly, unlawfully and without their consent."
The San say their way of life was being wiped out as they were resettled in bleak camps where they were unable to use their traditional hunting skills.
Botswana argued that Western activists, who have won the backing of Desmond Tutu and British actress Julie Christie, have romanticised a San lifestyle that vanished long ago.
It says the Basarwa, also known as the San, are a danger to wildlife and that the Kalahari reserve is a poverty trap which stops the San integrating into society and denies them access to healthcare and education.
- This article was originally published on page 2 of The Star on December 14, 2006
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