Bushmen Of The Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana

EDM number 1168 in 2003-04, proposed by Angus Robertson on 11/05/2004.

That this House recognises the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana, as the ancestral land of the Gana and Gwi bushmen and their neighbours the Bakgalagadi; notes that the Central Kalahari Game Reserve was established in 1961 by the British colonial administration as a home for the bushmen and as a means of protecting their rights; expresses its concern over continuing reports of the Government of Botswana forcibly evicting the bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve; believes such evictions and reported harassments of bushmen to be inexcusable, immoral and illegal; and calls upon the Government urgently to investigate these reports and to use its political and diplomatic ties with the Government of Botswana to encourage the respect and further strengthening of the rights and freedoms of the bushmen as established under international law and their right to return to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and freely to live there in the way they choose.

This motion has been signed by a total of 51 MPs.