Abstract
Since, the December 2006 ruling by the High Court of Botswana in Roy Sesana v. Attorney General, there are contrasted views as to whether the overall process was beneficial for the 242 claimants, for the Basarwa or for Botswana as a country. From one perspective, the case was a real success: powerless members of a marginal community won a high profile case against the government. The court recognized their right to live on ancestral lands and to enjoy their traditional lifestyle. Some rights forming part of the very substance of indigenous rights were either expressly or implicitly recognized by a court of law. Thus, in its symbolism and substance, the case outcome represented certainly good news for supporters of indigenous rights in Africa. Next to the ‘Richtersveld Community’ cases before South African courts, Roy Sesana v. Attorney General—also known as the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) case—represented one of the still rare cases where aboriginal title and more generally indigenous rights were expressly discussed. Nevertheless, the debates surrounding the past, present and future of members of CKGR communities, the Basarwa, or Southern African San were far from settled by these two cases.
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Notes
- 1.
Suzman 2002, pp. 1–10.
- 2.
Ibid., p. 7.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Odysseos 2004, p. 26.
- 6.
- 7.
Segobye 2006, p. 64.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
See Hitchcock 2002, for an account on sources of contemporary Basarwa grievances.
- 11.
See, for instance, Anaya 2004, pp. 29 et seq.
- 12.
See Cassidy et al. 2001, p. 26. This surface is nearly the combined size of Rwanda and Burundi, bigger than countries like the Netherlands or Belgium.
- 13.
See the introductory chapter.
- 14.
According to Roy Sesana v. Attorney General, para 1 (Justice Dibotelo judgment), CKGR communities (and Applicants) were dependent on the government for the provision of the following basic services: (i) the provision of drinking water on a weekly basis; (ii) the maintenance of the supply of borehole water; (iii) the provision of rations to registered destitute; (iv) the provision of rations for registered orphans; (v) the provision of transport for the Applicants’ children to and from school; (vi) provision of healthcare to the Applicants through mobile clinics and ambulance services.
- 15.
Our translation would be the stakes of indigenousness. For the publication, see Cutolo and Geschiere 2008, pp. 1–216.
- 16.
See Cutolo 2008, pp. 5–17. In spite of the slightly differing meaning attached to indigenousness in this publication, invocation of the concept is, nonetheless, equally criticized.
- 17.
See, for instance, Arnaut 2008, pp. 18–35.
- 18.
See Eltringham 2006, pp. 425–446.
- 19.
- 20.
Odysseos 2004, p. 26.
- 21.
Kuper 2003, p. 390.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
See the various criticisms by Kuper, Suzman, Hodgson, Igoe and others discussed in preceding chapters.
- 24.
According to ECOSOC 2003, p. 12, Akouvi Betty Gblem of ‘Association pour la promotion durable de la femme défavorisée’ represented the Ewe indigenous group.
- 25.
ACHPR and IWGIA 2005, pp. 86–87 (emphasis added).
- 26.
Suzman 2002, p. 6.
- 27.
British National Party, ‘Mission Statement’, http://bnp.org.uk/about-us/mission-statement/. Accessed 17 June 2009. The statement clarifies who the indigenous are: ‘people whose ancestors were the earliest settlers’ in the islands after the last great Ice Age as well as those originating from ‘historic migrations from mainland Europe’, namely ‘the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norse and closely related kindred peoples’. For more on this party, its politics of hostility towards immigration and people from specific racial or religious backgrounds, see John 2006.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 86.
- 29.
In a discussion with an African scholar who preferred not to be named on (the legitimacy of) indigenous rights in Africa, the present author invoked the fact that these rights were promoted by the ACHPR, to which the scholar exclaimed: ‘How African is the African Commission?’.
- 30.
In South Africa from 28 July to 8 August 2005 (UN Doc. E/CN.4/2006/78/Add.2, 15 December 2005) and Kenya from 4 to 14 December 2006 (UN Doc. A/HRC/4/32/Add.3, 26 February 2007).
- 31.
The present author met several delegations of ‘indigenous peoples’ representatives’ from Africa during the sixth (2007) and seventh (2008) sessions of the UNPFII.
- 32.
This was a recurrent claim in exchanges with officials in Botswana, Kenya or Rwanda, even if most of the time those who said this preferred to go off record. A high-ranking official in the Botswana’s president’s office claimed, in August 2008, that transposition of the indigenous movement in Africa was ‘yet another manifestation of western imperialism of ideas’. However, irrelevant the detail might be, it should be noted that the official is ‘Caucasian’, an academic, born in a western country, but acquired the nationality of Botswana by naturalization.
- 33.
As acknowledged by the organization in: IWGIA's Involvement in the Work of the African Commission (‘The overall objective of IWGIA's activities in relation to the African Commission is that the promotion and protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples will be fully integrated in the work of the African Commission’), http://www.iwgia.org/sw24946.asp. Accessed 14 July 2009.
- 34.
See http://www.iwgia.org/sw17656.asp. Accessed 13 July 2009.
- 35.
During an interview in July 2008, a prominent Maasai rights activist even mentioned with pride the fact that Nairobi carried a Maasai name, and as such, somehow being part of traditional Maasailand.
- 36.
For a listing of ‘unrepresented peoples’, see http://www.unpo.org/content/view/7783/240/. Accessed 14 July 2009.
- 37.
It was previously noted that members of the Maasai communities have held (or still hold) some of the highest positions in Kenya, including the country’s vice-presidency and ministerial posts.
- 38.
This was the lived experience of many members of the Banyamulenge community in Eastern Congo, as narrated to the author by Mzee André Nkoko.
- 39.
Previously cited Art. 39 of the 1994 Ethiopian Constitution.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
As a reminder, ACHPR, Katangese Peoples' Congress v. Zaire, para 4, lists the various forms that self-determination can take.
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Ndahinda, F.M. (2011). Indigenousness, Ethnicity, Marginality and Empowerment: Which Path to the Future?. In: Indigenousness in Africa. T.M.C. Asser Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-6704-609-1_9
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