Hundreds of San Bushmen were wrongly forced from their Kalahari desert homeland and should be allowed to return to their ancient hunting ground, a court in Botswana ruled on Wednesday.
In a majority verdict, a panel of three judges ruled the Botswana government had not acted unlawfully when cutting off vital supplies to the Bushmen in the Kalahari desert but had failed to hold adequate consultations with them beforehand and had no right to deny them permission to return after the ouster.
The Bushmen and their lawyers reacted to the verdict with delight, saying their years-long battle for justice had been finally vindicated after presiding judge Maruping Dibotelo delivered the verdict in the city of Lobatse.
"Prior to January 31 2002, the applicants were in possession of the land which they lawfully occupied in the CKGR [central Kalahari game reserve]," Dibotelo told the court.
"The applicants were deprived of such possessions forcibly or wrongly and without their consent," he said.
The government's subsequent refusal to allow the Bushmen a permit to return to their land "is unlawful and unconstitutional," the judge added.
Since a group of around 200 indigenous Bushmen first filed an application in April 2002 challenging their eviction from a game reserve, the case has become a cause celebre with the applicants gathering the backing of celebrities including Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and film star Colin Firth.
The Bushmen maintain they were driven out of the Kalahari to make way for diamond mining, a claim the world's top diamond producer has denied.
Speaking outside the courtroom, veteran Bushmen leader Roy Sesana said he wanted to get back to his homeland as soon as possible after having had to spend the last few years living in a relocation camp.
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