A London barrister has criticized the UK’s Foreign Office for failing to acknowledge on its website that the Botswana government illegally and forcibly removed Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their ancestral lands.Gordon Bennett represented the Bushmen in their four-year legal battle against the Botswana government after it evicted them from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The case was the longest and most expensive the country has ever seen, and culminated in 2006 when the Botswana High Court ruled that the evictions were illegal and unconstitutional and that the Bushmen have the right to live in the reserve.
However, Mr Bennett has criticized the Foreign Office for failing to address this in its country profile of Botswana. ‘Its website refers to arguments advanced by the government to justify its relocation of the Bushmen, but it does not explain that the court ruled that the relocation was indeed unlawful’.
Mr Bennett also challenged the Foreign Office’s reference to a ‘constructive dialogue’ between the Bushmen and the government, which it describes as ‘ongoing’. ‘I remain in regular contact with Bushmen who have returned to the reserve’, he said, ‘but do not believe that any of them have participated in discussions with the government’.
Add comment (0)
The man who masterminded the 1998 terrorist attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam is believed to have taken over the leadership of al-Shabaab in war-torn Somalia, Kenyan counter-terrorism officials say.
Ethiopia inaugurated a museum on Sunday in memory of victims of former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam's "Red Terror" purge which killed tens of thousands in the 1970s. 
Finger of God. This is the latest of many catchwords, "churches" and or businesses to come out of Kenya's booming religious sector. So ubiquitous has this name become in the minds and even acts of some Nairobi-based Kenyans that mention it anywhere and you will receive, in the very least, an expression of want-to-know-more. And this is brought to you courtesy of a TV poster girl, and a jazz music maestro-cum-preacher. What a combination!!
Homosexuality in Africa is one of those subjects that provoke great emotion, generally a taboo issue most Africans seem to believe it to be a ‘sin’ or abomination against whichever God they worship. It’s an issue so hot that it may be the only one which brings together both Muslim and Christian as it recently did in Kenya when religious leaders from both sides joined together to protest a gay marriage.
