Africa-Press – Botswana. Kgosi Monthe Kebualemang of Mababe says government should engage them as different communities of the indigenous people to come up with a name that will include them instead of lumping them as Basarwa. Welcoming the Inter Ministerial Committee assigned to look into the situation of Baswarwa during a kgotla meeting in Mababe on Wednesday, Kgosi Kebualemang said the term Basarwa undermined their identity and argued that they were divided into distinct groups with different dialects.
In Mababe, he said the community was originally Batsega while in Khwai were commonly referred to as Babukakhwe.
“We are one of the communities of the indigenous people and we do not know why we are referred to as Basarwa because this undermines our identity,” he added.
Kgosi Kebualemang informed the committee that their rights as the indigenous people were in jeopardy.
He recalled a time when the tourism ministry assigned a task force to investigate issues of maladministration at Mababe Trust which turned resulted in an act of intimidate, to silence those who were advocating for the rights of the community.
Kgosi Kebualemang also said the task force planted seeds of division among the community.
He stated that Mababe community used to own a chunk of land that was referred to as Area 8 but, the government divided it into concessions and currently “we are left with a small portion named NG41 operated by the trust to benefit the community.”
Efforts, to bring NG40 back into the possession of the trust failed, Kgosi Kebualemang said, adding that they were denied the opportunity to utilise NG40 because they were a minority group.
Another burning issue at the meeting was the delay by the government to allocate land. Residents stated that the government had long promised to finalise the pending issue on whether they were converted to tribal land or remain under state land but there has not been any progress. Mababe is situated in a concession area NG41 which is classified as state land and residents pointed out that allocation of land in the area was suspended in 2012.
Residents said they were given an option to choose whether they wanted to be converted to tribal land, remain as state land or be relocated.
A residents, Mr Onkgomoditse Obiditswe said they were denied the chance to enjoy land rights despite having lived in the area for a long time.
If they had land, he said they would venture into income generating projects that created employment opportunities for the locals. Mr Nkatogang Sebinelo also expressed frustration regarding the land issue. He said they felt like squatters in their ancestral land but was hopeful that the current administration would do right by them.
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