BOTSWANA: Bushmen win peace prize

On September 29, the First People of the Kalahari (FPK), the grassroots organisation of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen, who are fighting for their right to return to their ancestral homeland, were awarded Sweden's Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. The Kalahari Bushmen won for their "resolute resistance against eviction from their ancestral lands, and for upholding the right to their traditional way of life". Five days earlier, FPK leaders were among a group of 28 Bushmen arrested by police as they attempted to take food and water to their relatives inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, from which most of the Bushmen have been evicted. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and the Bushmen were severely beaten. On October 7, dozens of Bushmen were evicted by police at gunpoint. Police have vowed to remove all the Bushmen from their land. For more information visit <http://www.survival-international.org>.

From Green Left Weekly, October 12, 2005.

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From GLW issue 645