Botswana: Amnesty Chile's Bushman Rights Campaign

Botswana: Amnesty Chile Launches Bushman Rights Campaign

Amnesty International in Chile has launched a campaign in support of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen, adding to the growing list of international NGOs speaking out against the Botswana government's eviction of the Bushmen from their land.

'The people of the Kalahari need the support of the whole world,' reads the campaign's webpage. 'The authorities have forced them to abandon their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, have cut off their water supply, forbidden them from hunting and gathering food, and are forcing them to live in resettlement camps where desperation reigns.' Amnesty urges its supporters to write to the Botswana government demanding that they let the Bushmen go home.

Amnesty is the world's best-known independent human rights organisation. It has over 1.8 million members in more than 150 countries and territories.

Aside from the campaign by Survival International, national and international NGOs in Botswana, Namibia, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa and France made statements last year condemning the eviction of the Bushmen. This year, representatives of the Innu people of eastern Canada wrote to the Botswana Gazette urging the Botswana government not to make the same mistakes with the Bushmen that the Canadian government made in moving the Innu off their land.

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To read about Amnesty's campaign visit http://www.amnistia.cl/index_camps.shtml?x=48082 (In Spanish)

To read statements by other NGOs visit http://survival-international.org/news.php?id=1148

To read the Innu letter visit http://survival-international.org/related_material.php?id=412

To read this press release online, visit http://survival-international.org/news.php?id=1526

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