Botswana President Festus Mogae has met with a small number of Bushmen in an effort to persuade them not to return to their life of hunting and gathering in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Only about 100 of the 2000 Bushmen in New Xade attended Thursday's meeting with the president although state media had encouraged them not to return to the game reserve -- as a court had ruled they had the right to do -- until after they had heard the president's speech.

New Xade is a village on the western edge of the game reserve where the Bushmen evicted from the reserve by the government were relocated.

A court in December gave the Bushmen, who prefer to be called Basarwa, the right to resume their ancient hunter-gatherer ways in the vast game reserve the government argued was threatened by their presence. The verdict was hailed as a victory for indigenous peoples around the world.

Roy Sesana, the leader of the First People of the Kalahari group that took the government to court, did not attend the meeting. Jeff Ramsay, the president's press secretary, said that the president stressed that he did not want the Basarwa to remain poor.

The president, he said, told the Basarwa that "hunting and gathering belonged to the past generation and that his generation had embraced education and new opportunities".

Mogae also said New Xade would be connected to the national power grid before the end of the year. He said the government also was studying the feasibility of building a paved road to the nearby town of Ghansti and that television transmitters would soon replace the need for satellite technology.

The president also said the government would help the Basarwa in the village get involved in income generating projects. Small groups of Bushmen already have returned to the game reserve, choosing not to wait for the president's speech. Mogae told the villagers that the government respects the rule of law and had already taken steps to implement the court order. But the government has made it difficult for the tribesmen to return. It says they can't take along cows or goats or other items that have become necessary to supplement hunting and gathering. The government also has said only the 189 people who filed the lawsuit would be given automatic right of return with their children -- short of the 2000 the Basarwa say want to go home.

Bushmen also will not be allowed to build permanent structures in the reserve and hunters will have to apply for permits. The court ruled the government's eviction of the Bushmen was "unlawful and unconstitutional," saying they have the right to hunt and gather in the reserve and should not have to apply for permits to enter.

The Basarwa, who speak a variety of distinctive "click" languages, were the original inhabitants of an area stretching from the tip of South Africa to the Zambezi valley in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Their rock paintings, wildlife knowledge and ability to survive for more than 20000 years in one of the harshest environments on Earth have fascinated scholars.

Only an estimated 100000 are left today, most living in poverty on society's fringes.

The government argues the Bushmen's presence in the reserve is not compatible with preserving wildlife and that living in such harsh conditions offers few prospects.

British colonial authorities established the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 1961 to protect an area rich in wildlife. Botswana supported traditional communities after independence in 1966, providing water, food and mobile clinics to people in the reserve. - Sapa-AP


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