SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
29 September 2005
ARRESTED BUSHMEN WIN 'ALTERNATIVE NOBEL PRIZE'
Five days after their leaders were arrested and
beaten, there was a
dramatic turnaround today in the fortunes of the
Kalahari Bushmen as
they learnt they have won the 'Alternative Nobel
Prize'.
First People of the Kalahari (FPK), the grass-roots
organisation of
the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of Botswana, who are fighting
for their
right to return to their ancestral homeland, today won
Sweden's Right
Livelihood Award, known as the 'Alternative Nobel
Prize'.
The award has been given for the Bushmen's 'resolute
resistance
against eviction from their ancestral lands, and for
upholding the
right to their traditional way of life.'
Five days ago the FPK leaders were amongst a group of
28 Bushmen who
were arrested by police firing tear gas and rubber
bullets. The
Bushmen were attempting to take food and water to
their relatives
still inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, from
which most of
the Bushmen have been evicted. The Bushmen leaders
were badly beaten
after being handcuffed.
FPK has been fighting a long battle for the right of
the Gana and Gwi
Bushmen to live peacefully inside the reserve, which
is their
ancestral homeland. The reserve's rich diamond
deposits have been
widely blamed for the government's expulsion of the
Bushmen. De
Beers, which runs all Botswana's diamond mines, is now
the subject of
a global boycott.
For more information about the award go to:
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/news/event05.htm
For more information about the Bushmen please contact
Miriam Ross on
(020) 7687 8731 or email [log in to unmask]
Read this press release online:
http://www.survival-international.org/news.php?id=1065
Notes to Editors:
Past winners of the Prize include Kenyan
environmentalist Wangari
Maathai, and Nigerian Ken Saro-Wiwa.
The FPK's leader Roy Sesana is the first Botswana-born
winner of the
prize.
Pamela Shurmer-Smith
Portsmouth
UK
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