VZCZCXRO8188
RR RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHOR #0240/01 0831236
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 241236Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY GABORONE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5663
INFO RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GABORONE 000240 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/S, AF/RSA, DRL 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ECON SENV PHUM PINR BC
SUBJECT: MOST SAN CHOOSE ASSISTANCE OVER TRADITION 
 
REF: GABORONE 235 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. NOT FOR INTERNET POSTING. 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary. PolOff traveled with a San guide to the 
ghost town of Xade, a former San settlement within the 
Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) as well as the village 
of New Xade, a new San community near but outside the 
reserve.  New Xade's population is almost entirely dependent 
on GOB assistance and has few economic opportunities.  Both 
government officials and PolOff's San guide cited lack of 
economic opportunities, geographic isolation and a lack of 
motivation in the San community to move off of public 
assistance as major stumbling blocks to development in New 
Xade.  Members of the San community are enthusiastic about 
new talks with the GOB about economic development, 
residency, and hunting rights. End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) Ghanzi District is a large, sparsely-populated area 
in the west of Botswana, sharing a border with Namibia and 
including the vast Central Kalahari Game Reserve.  According 
to the 2001 census, Ghanzi District has 32,000 residents, 
many of whom are categorized as destitute.  In February, 
PolOff traveled to Ghanzi to meet with government officials, 
NGOs, and representatives of the Basarwa minority ethnic 
group (who live in Ghanzi District in greater numbers than in 
other Botswana Districts).  The Basarwa are commonly referred 
to as the San or "San Bushmen" in the Western media, although 
the San in the CKGR refer to themselves as Kua, which is a 
clan name. PolOff's meeting with local government officials 
was reported in reftel. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) PolOff spent a day visiting the San communities of 
Xade and New Xade.  Xade is a now-abandoned village that was 
previously inhabited by the San inside the CKGR.  New Xade is 
the settlement outside the reserve where many of those 
resettled San now live.  PolOff was escorted by a San guide, 
Mr. Jumanda, who was formerly an employee of the First People 
of the Kalahari organization (FPK).  The FPK is the group who 
successfully sued the GOB for the right for San to live 
within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.  Mr. Jumanda was a 
party to the lawsuit and is thus permitted to live in the 
CKGR, but he currently chooses to live in the town of Ghanzi. 
 
 
 
------------------------------ 
Living Conditions in New Xade 
------------------------------ 
¶4.  (U) Arriving in New Xade, a town of about 2500 residents, 
PolOff's first stop was New Xade's health clinic. The clinic 
is small and has three nurses.  As we arrived on a Tuesday, 
the day that the doctor visits from Ghanzi, the clinic was 
busy with about 25 patients waiting to be seen.  The clinic, 
one of 22 in Ghanzi District, is able to offer only basic 
services like distribution of medicines (including 
antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS), childhood 
vaccinations, and minor checkups.  For more serious medical 
needs New Xade residents must travel to Ghanzi, which is 
about an hour away along a sandy road.  There is no public 
transportation between the two towns, although a clinic 
vehicle is available to transport medical patients to 
appointments. 
 
¶5.  (U) In addition to the clinic, New Xade has a primary 
school (the nearest secondary school is in Ghanzi). The 
school's name, "Kjoe" means beautiful, and the enthusiastic 
headmistress who has been at the school less than a year is 
very proud of her school and her 602 students.  She is most 
proud of the "sevens" test scores that were just reported for 
Kjoe.  (These are the tests that students take just before 
graduating to secondary school).  Kjoe had an 80% pass rate, 
which was the second highest in the district and the ninth 
highest out of the over 80 schools in the region. 
 
¶6.  (U) While the headmistress reports that her school is 
well supplied with books, uniforms and food, she does say 
that there are many challenges for her.  Her largest 
challenge is perception by many parents, especially in the 
San community, that their children derive no benefit from 
attending school.  The headmistress says that she spends a 
lot of her time promoting community involvement with the 
school and convincing parents to re-enroll their children in 
school after they drop out.  The main reason that the 
children drop out is that they are living in the hostels at 
the school and miss their family.  Boarding students are 
 
GABORONE 00000240  002 OF 003 
 
 
brought to school at the beginning of term and are only 
returned to their families when term ends. 
 
¶7.  (U) At Kjoe, about 300 of the 602 students live in the 
hostels, which are segregated by age and sex.  The clean but 
sparsely furnished bedrooms are set up like large dorm rooms 
with small rooms off to the side for studies.  There is only 
one full-time woman employed to watch the children at the 
hostels and she lives in a house close to, but not a part of 
the hostel.  There was also a sports room and an 
entertainment room at the hostel, but neither looked much 
used or had much equipment. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Most people living in New Xade receive food rations 
from the GOB and are classified as destitute.  The GOB has 
encouraged income-generating programs for the residents, but 
residents complain that the project ideas are not quite 
right, are not workable or are not what they want to do. 
Other residents say that they would prefer to keep receiving 
the GOB handout. PolOff's guide opined that the San were 
"basically becoming a class of welfare recipients."  He said 
this was caused when they were moved to a town where the San 
could not take care of their own needs.  But he also added 
"the San seem to be losing their drive to take care of 
themselves and are growing comfortable with the government 
programs." 
 
 
--------------------- 
Xade: CKGR Ghost Town 
--------------------- 
¶9.  (U) Mr. Jumanda, a San guide, took PolOff to visit the 
traditional San village of Xade, which has essentially been 
abandoned since the San were moved out of the CKGR.  Xade is 
located about 2-3 hours inside the CKGR on a deep sand road, 
which is often impassable during the rainy season.  Jumanda 
had grown up in Xade and he described what life had been like 
for the community.  The town was established by the GOB in 
the late 1970's and grew to a population of about 700 
residents.  Though the San had historically lived in small 
groups scattered throughout the CKGR, Mr. Jumanda said that 
almost all of the CKGR San moved to Xade over time.  They 
still left Xade for occasional hunting trips, but also raised 
goats in town.  In addition to houses, the GOB provided a 
wide range of government services.  There was a primary 
school (equipped with teacher's housing), a clinic, a 
community development center, government buildings (for 
government benefits workers such as food distributors, to 
work out of while they were in town once a week), a town 
meeting center, a borehole, and two water faucets.  To 
service all of these facilities the GOB built an airstrip and 
(at huge expense) all GOB personnel, food, gas for the 
borehole pump and engineers to repair the borehole were flown 
in once a week.  In 1996, the GOB decided to move the 
population from Xade to another settlement outside the CKGR. 
Our guide added that the San residents of Xade were not very 
upset to be resettled as a "a lot of lions were eating the 
donkeys." (Note: One of the reasons the GOB gave for this 
relocation was the tremendous cost in providing services to 
the community while it was in such a isolated location.  End 
Note) 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
San Guide's Views on FPK Lawsuit, Resettlement 
--------------------------------------------- - 
¶10.  (SBU) Mr. Jumanda stated that he felt that most of the 
San who were interested in living in the CKGR had been a 
party to FPK's lawsuit against the GOB and had therefore been 
granted the right of return to the CKGR.  He did not think 
there were many other members of the San community who wanted 
to live in the CKGR but were unable to do so.  More likely, 
he said was that there were some people who would like to 
return to the CKGR, but only if the full compliment of 
government services that had been available in Xade were 
again available.  He pointed out that although many people in 
New Xade that were wearing "I Love CKGR" shirts and that the 
town's football (soccer) team was called the "Tears of the 
Kalahari," most of them had not joined in the lawsuit. 
 
¶11.  (U) There are approximately 300 San people who were 
party to the lawsuit brought by FPK.  By court order they, 
their spouses and minor children are allowed to return to the 
CKGR to live year round.  Normally, however, even those San 
allowed to live in CKGR only go into the reserve once the 
rainy season begins, usually in December through April.  Once 
inside the reserve, they live in grass huts and eat 
 
GABORONE 00000240  003 OF 003 
 
 
watermelons, tubers and millet.  During the rest of the year, 
most San stay outside the CKGR and reside with family members 
who live full time outside the CKGR. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Mr. Jumanda's main criticisms of the current 
situation with the San are that he feels that they are overly 
dependent on handouts and are "set up to fail".  He also 
thinks that there are many unfair policies in place by the 
GOB and that the government is not representative? of the 
San.  He feels that a lot of discrimination still exists 
against the San, especially against children in the school 
system.  Finally, he criticized that the income generating 
projects that were set up did not bring as much money as they 
should back to the community.  He pointed to the example of 
Ghanzi Craft, which is a craft shop in Ghanzi that sells the 
crafts made by the San, for not sending back all of the money 
that customers pay the store for crafts back to the San 
community.  (Note: PolOff met with the owner of Ghanzi Craft, 
who readily admitted that she marked up the craft items by 
about 100% from what the San were paid.  She said this money 
was used for overhead at the store, including rent, salaries 
for three full time employees and a computer systems for 
inventory control.) 
 
¶13.  (SBU) However, even with these criticisms, the guide was 
enthusiastic about the prospect of renewed talks between the 
GOB and the San people.  If talks are renewed, then Mr. 
Jumanda plans to again join with the FPK and work within the 
CKGR as a community organizer.  His goal, he says, would be 
to help build consensus within the San community to help with 
negotiations with the GOB.  In his opinion, the main issues 
he would like the government to discuss are hunting rights 
within the CKGR, providing boreholes for the San in the CKGR 
and equity issues for San living outside the CKGR.  Mr. 
Jumanda was also enthusiastic about government plans to run 
electricity to New Xade, to add running water to the houses 
in New Xade and the expansion of New Xade's clinic.  He notes 
that New Xade was getting more infrastructure improvements 
than other San settlements and wondered if New Xade was 
getting these items only because they were raising the issues 
more loudly than other settlements. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
¶14.  (U) COMMENT:  The GOB is now offering a choice for 
members of the San community.  For those members who fought 
for their right to return to the CKGR, they may live in the 
CKGR, but must do so without GOB-provided infrastructure or 
health and education resources.  The GOB argues that it is 
simply too costly to provide extensive government services in 
a remote location like the CKGR.  The San's second choice is 
to live outside the CKGR, in settlements or in towns of their 
choosing, and take advantage of the full complement of GOB 
services. 
 
¶15.  (SBU) It appears that the San began moving a away from 
their traditional lifestyle when they began living in the 
settlement of Xade within the CKGR, where they began to grow 
accustomed to GOB services being provided and started to 
pursue more farming activities.  This has resulted in a split 
in the San community, where younger members are more 
accustomed to a more modern way of living and seem less 
willing to live in a traditional manner while older members 
of the community still embrace the traditional way of life. 
It seems likely that as the older generation passes on that 
the younger San will be less concerned with living a 
traditional lifestyle, but will look more towards government 
supported protections of San traditions, rights to hunt and 
continued government support though equalizing opportunities 
and providing services. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Though it is highly unlikely that the GOB will 
offer to provide services in the CKGR, the government would 
be wise to increase its efforts to improve economic 
opportunities and continue its infrastructure improvements to 
San communities like New Xade and to help combat the feelings 
of marginalization.  If the proposed talks between the San 
and the GOB take place, and don't become the heated arguments 
that occurred in the past, this could also go a long way 
toward easing tensions between the San community and the GOB. 
 Post will report on these discussions as appropriate.  END 
COMMENT. 
NOLAN