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Botswana: SI Fires Salvo At Govt Over CKGR Boreholes
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
Oliver Modise
Survival International (SI) has lambasted government for refusing to allow Basarwa access to boreholes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) while allowing corporate interests to drill boreholes in the park.
Basarwa who returned home to the CKGR are still going without water because government says it has no obligation to provide such services to them.
Yesterday, a press statement released by SI revealed that Gem Diamonds, the mining company expected to mine diamonds in the CKGR, has dug a number of exploratory boreholes in the game reserve to be followed by more.
"Several water boreholes have been sunk in preparation for a diamond mine in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), but Basarwa who live there are forbidden from taking any water at all from their own borehole in the reserve," says SI director, Stephen Corry.
SI alleges that the boreholes have been created as part of the Environmental Assessment, which precedes the construction of Gem Diamonds' $2.2 billion diamond mine at Gope. SI alleges that the diamond mine will require several wells to supply it with enough water for its operations.
It has been stated that Basarawa have been pleading with government to reopen a borehole at Mothomelo, which has been their main source of water since 2002 when government shut it down, in a bid viewed as a campaign to encourage the Basarwa to relocate.
Corry says that the Botswana government is determined to keep Basarwa out of their ancestral lands by allowing the diamond miners and lodge operators to sink boreholes while depriving Basarwa of the same priviledges.
Contacted for comment, Director of Public Relations and Research at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Clifford Maribe, said that government's position on the provision of water at CKGR has not changed. He stated that government is of the view that those who want to live in the game reserve can make arrangements to bring water into the CKGR as government is under no obligation to provide water.
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"People are at liberty to bring in their water if they want to," Maribe said.
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