Evictions Walinets Probably Never Heard About
 | By Advis3r
August 10, 2011 | Share |
As per http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6881
The US Ambassador to Botswana strongly condemned the government’s forced eviction of the Kalahari Bushmen, according to secret US embassy cables released today.
Ambassador Joseph Huggins told his bosses in Washington in 2005 that the Bushmen had been ‘dumped in economically absolutely unviable situations without forethought, and without follow-up support. The lack of imagination displayed… is breathtaking.’
He concluded by saying, ‘The special tragedy of New Xade’s dependent population [i.e. the Bushmen in the relocation camp] is that it could have been avoided.’
Botswana’s government forcibly evicted the Bushmen from their ancestral lands inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002. The Bushmen were dumped in government relocation camps outside the reserve where HIV/Aids, alcoholism, and other problems previously unknown to the Bushmen are rife.
After visiting New Xade relocation camp, Ambassador Huggins noted ‘despair among youth’. The cables also reveal Huggins’ frustration with Botswana’s then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ernest Mpofu. Having suggested that the government reconsider its approach to the Bushmen, Huggins found that Mpofu ‘dismissed all such suggestions’ which were ‘met with thinly veiled scorn’.
The cables also detail Huggins’ discussions with a representative of a local NGO who criticized the government for ‘the lack of consultation, and the lack of transparency in decision-making when it came to the treatment of [the Bushmen]’. The representative, who has not been named, also told Huggins that Bushmen ‘are systematically being discriminated against by the [government], which moves them away from wherever there might be an income-generating opportunity’, and that they ‘believed that plans for mining were the reason that the [Bushman] groups were removed’.
Following the evictions, the Bushmen took the government to court in a legal battle that became the longest and most expensive in the country’s history. In a landmark ruling in 2006, Botswana’s High Court ruled that the evictions had been illegal and unconstitutional and that the Bushmen have the right to return to their lands.
However, despite the ruling, the government has continued to make life in the reserve impossible for the Bushmen. It has banned them from accessing a well which they rely on for water and which they used before the government sealed it in a bid to force them off their lands.
The Bushmen launched further litigation against the government in a bid to gain access to their well. A High Court judge dismissed their case in 2010, expressing sympathy with the government, and an appeal hearing was held on Monday. The ruling will be delivered on either 27th or 31st January.
The day after the hearing was held, Gem Diamonds announced that the Botswana government has issued it a licence to open a diamond mine at one of the Bushman communities inside the reserve. While the government had always maintained that the concession was sub-economic, Gem Diamonds values the mine at $3 billion.
Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Yet again, the Botswana government is shown to have been behind needless suffering, scorn, discrimination, and even death, for its most deprived citizens, the Bushmen. This is not just the opinion of some human rights activists and the Bushmen themselves, it is a matter of fact as reported by the US government. However much wealth they bring to the few, diamonds should not be bought at the cost of the destruction of these Bushman peoples’.
This is a case of real wrong-doing but because it does not involve the State of Israel or Jews I doubt that you have even heard about it - delegitimisation of the State of Israel begins by focussing unfairly on even the most minor incidents which would go unremarked in say the UK - the lawful removal of squatters from property which they are illegally occupying after due process of law goes on every day. Similarly illegally connecting to the public water supply is an offence in the UK so nobody suggests that the Water Authority is acting illegally when it cuts off the supply. Given what has happened in the above case has David Hearst suggested that Botswana should no longer exist?
By the way I have not called you an anti-Semite, I think you are misguided in attempting to equate what goes on in Israel with Leeds. Have you considered why you should be adversely affected by Israel exercising its rights as a sovereign state to enforce the rule of law because of some screed written by an anti-Israel commentator. Do you ever stop and wonder why some critics of Israel seem to lump in even Jews who have no connection with Israel in their criticism of Israel?
The Arabs are attempting to deny any Jewish connection to this land and make out that the establishment of the State of Israel is a colonisation project by outsiders hence their refusal to recognise israel as the State of the Jewish people as they want their state of Palestine to be recognised as the State of the Palestinian people. They do this among other things by trying to claim ownership of land to which Jews have legal title and which in many cases was bought and paid for many years ago. What is going on in the Shimon Hatzaddik neighbourhood is a case in point. Do not be taken in by this.
COMMENTS
10 August, 2011 - 12:02 Rate this: 0 points | Millis has unfortunately as usual nothing of intelligence to add so he resorts to ad hominem trying to deny who I am such pettiness defines him. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:02 Rate this: 0 points | Indeed. In Isreal there is a housing crisis. For Palestinians, in much of the brutally and Illegally occupied territories there is a housing ban. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:07 Rate this: 0 points | Nonsense RRZ read the article I have linked to there is no crisis the massive housing projects going up every day testify to it. If you lived here as I do you would see them but of course living where you do ... |
10 August, 2011 - 12:16 Rate this: 0 points | One week in June: * Fasayil (located in the central Jordan Valley): On 14 June '11, the Civil Administration demolished 16 temporary structures in which people lived. As a result, 108 persons, including 59 minors, lost their home. Three enclosures for livestock were also destroyed. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:18 Rate this: 0 points | Whataboutery, again, wannabe. The Arab villages to the East of Jerusalem that your mates drive past are not in Israel. Even if they wanted to, the residents thein couldn't apply for housing permission. And even if they could, it would be denied. Ever thought why no new Arab towns or villages have been built in Israel proper since 1948? They are not allowed to do so. And don't give me Ramawi. That's in the occupied West Bank. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:18 Rate this: 0 points | Israel's policy is to prevent building and development in Palestinian communities in Area C, which spans some 60 percent of the West Bank and is under complete Israeli control. Two main methods are used to this end. One is having the Civil Administration prepare for some communities what are ostensibly outline plans, but in fact serve to restrict building to areas that have already been built-up. Thus, they effectively prevent communities from expanding and developing. The other is declaring large swaths of land as “firing zones”. This was used, for example, in the area in which al-Hadidiya and Khirbet Yarza are located. "Firing zones" have been declared in 46 percent of the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea area, although some of them are located along main traffic arteries or next to land worked by settlers; some even include land cultivated by settlers. Although Palestinian communities lived on some of these lands prior to the occupation of the West Bank, since they have been included in "firing zones", the Civil Administration now forbids Palestinians from using them for any purpose, including residence. The homes of Palestinians still living on such land are systematically demolished. Before the recent wave of demolitions, the residents of al-Hadidiya were last subjected to this practice on 7 April 2011, when three residential structures were destroyed. As a result, 26 persons, including 16 minors, lost their homes. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:24 Rate this: 0 points | Millis = 1. Of small importance; trivial: a petty grievance.2. Marked by narrowness of mind, ideas, or views.3. Marked by meanness or lack of generosity, especially in trifling matters. Rushkin . As Justus Weiner writes: |
10 August, 2011 - 12:27 Rate this: 0 points | It's funny how it's always Palestinian houses that are demolished though - isn't it? But then that is how apartheid works. Terrorise and discriminate against a group of people because of their race / colour / religion etc. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:27 Rate this: 0 points | For years, the Civil Administration and the settlers in the southern Hebron hills have been attempting to drive the residents of Khirbet al-‘Id out of their village. In 2004, the villagers had no choice but to leave after the area was declared a "firing zone" and after they were repeatedly harassed by settlers. In its 2009 decision on a petition filed by Rabbis for Human Rights, the High Court of Justice ordered the Civil Administration to enable the Palestinians to return to the land on which they had lived, but only to sections that had not been declared a "firing zone." In December of the same year, the Civil Administration issued demolition orders for 17 shacks in the community, on the grounds that they had been built without a permit. This attitude starkly contrasts the treatment of settlers in the unauthorized outpost Mizpe Ya’ir, established next to Khirbet al-‘Id in 1989, partly on private Palestinian-owned land. The outpost was built without a permit, yet has been hooked up to water and electricity, and an access road has even been paved for it – at government expense. The Civil Administration has taken no action to enforce the law in the outpost. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:35 Rate this: 0 points | Wannabe returns to sinat chinam so quickly after Tisha B'Av. Still it shows he has no other answers to the claims. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:40 Rate this: 0 points | My dear Millis when you deal with what I say not what you call me we can talk about sinat chinam and perhaps I might answer your queries which you can easily find out for yourself by clicking on the link. I don't hate you but you have clearly demonstrated that you hate anyone (including me) who lives in Judea and Samaria. Grow up! |
10 August, 2011 - 12:43 Rate this: 0 points | 'who lives in Judea and Samaria' And where were you born? I bet it wasn't in The West Bank. Yet those who were born there live under occupation and are being gradually expelled. That's apartheid. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:45 Rate this: 0 points | what is your source???? 'I might answer your queries which you can easily find out for yourself' |
10 August, 2011 - 12:52 Rate this: 0 points | Wannabe, evade as much as you want. You were found out long ago. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:53 Rate this: 0 points | Ruskin no sources I gave a source for my facts you give none so they remain unsupported allegations - so who to believe? So rushkin it matters where I came from? If you bother to look at my public profile you will see where I came from. I have returned to the Jewish homeland and have as much right to live here as a Jew has a right to live anywhere else in the world where the laws governing the status of residents does not discriminate against Jews. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:53 Rate this: 0 points | And I notice the wannabe won't tell us about Weiner and the insititute that employs him. Maybe someone should Google him or Dore Gold. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:54 Rate this: 0 points | But it discriminates against Palestinians. But that's OK? |
10 August, 2011 - 12:55 Rate this: 0 points | The JCPA Major Programs Jerusalem in International Diplomacy -- Analysis of the legal and historic rights of Israel in Jerusalem according to existing agreements and UN documents. New Atlantic Initiative -- Since March 2000, JCPA has been cooperating with the American Enterprise Institute and 18 think-tanks in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, examining ways to revitalize the Atlantic Community and U.S.-Israel relations. American Jewish Community Jews and the American Public Square -- A three-year program of communal dialogue, research and publication, initiated by The Pew Charitable Trusts and directed by Prof. Alan Mittleman, designed to explore the theme of religion and the public square in the context of the American Jewish experience. Israel's Internal Agenda Privatization of the Israeli Economy -- For over a decade, the Jerusalem Center has been encouraging the expansion of privatization in the Israeli economy. Under the direction of Director General Zvi Marom, and in cooperation with the Milken Institute and the Koret Foundation, the project looks at various types of privatization from public, economic, legal, and social perspectives. The project includes conferences, workshops, and publications that have been widely distributed among decision-makers, economists, and experts on the capital market. Israel's Educational System -- Conducting applied research on educational problems from a systematic perspective to better deal with the educational needs of the 21st century. The Druze in Israel -- This project has been working with leading members of the Druze community to enable that community to acquire a more equal position in Israeli society. Other activities involving Israel's Internal Agenda have included studies of Israel's constitution, electoral reform, and election studies (with books covering every Israeli election since 1977); domestic issues such as improving Israel's health care system; local government; religion and politics; and communal relations within Israel society. Study of Jewish Community Organization The Study of Jewish Community Organization, initiated in 1968, was the first world-wide study undertaken of every organized Jewish community. The Study led to the establishment in 1970 of the Center for Jewish Community Studies in Philadelphia, the forerunner of the Jerusalem Center and today the center of our work in America. Products of this study include People and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of World Jewry and Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry. Jewish Political Tradition The Jerusalem Center has published landmark works in this field including Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses, The Jewish Polity: Jewish Political Organization from Biblical Times to the Present, Authority, Power and Leadership in the Jewish Polity: Cases and Issues, and Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel; as well as being the home of the Jewish Political Studies Review (since 1989). Since 1977, the Jerusalem Center has been developing an experimental core high school course which uses the Jewish political tradition to teach Jewish civic values. The Jerusalem Center has introduced sessions devoted to Jewish Political Studies at meetings of the Association for Jewish Studies, the World Congress of Jewish Studies, and the American Political Science Association. Jewish Women's Human Rights International Jewish Women's Human Rights Watch -- Directed by Sharon Shenhav, this Jerusalem Center project, co-sponsored by the International Council of Jewish Women, is working to gather information, research, and publicize the infringement of Jewish women's rights to equality in marriage, divorce, and the founding of a family. Teaching and Outreach The Jerusalem Center organizes workshops and conferences, including international conferences, special study sessions, forums, and training courses which are conducted for members of the academic community, public officials, Jewish leaders from Israel and abroad, and the general public. The JCPA offers scholars and students from abroad an opportunity to conduct research and participate in the JCPA's programs. Publications The Jerusalem Center has published hundreds of reports and monographs, as well as over 60 books. Over 100 Jerusalem Viewpoints -- in-depth, bi-weekly reports and analysis on changing events in Israel, the Middle East, and the Jewish world. Daniel Elazar On-Line Library -- 240 articles by the Jerusalem Center's Fonder on Israeli society and religion, government and politics, Jewish community studies, American political culture, and more. Full-text Reports -- on Jerusalem in International Diplomacy (also in Hebrew), Recogition of a Palestinian State, and Attitudes of American Jews on Religion in the Public Square. Jerusalem Issue Briefs -- Concise, insider reports on timely topics. The Literature of Jewish Public Affairs -- An illustrated, descriptive catalogue of 44 English and 26 Hebrew JCPA publications. Jewish Political Studies Review -- Abstracts of 175 published articles. Jewish Environmental Perspectives -- Studying the relation of Jewish tradition to environmental issues. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:56 Rate this: 0 points | Wannabe, those "facts" of yours come from one very biased source. |
10 August, 2011 - 12:56 Rate this: 0 points | 'I have returned to the Jewish homeland and have as much right . . . . ' But what about the people who were actually born there and whose families go back generations? Why are they being expelled? Why are they being denied freedom and rights? |
10 August, 2011 - 12:59 Rate this: 0 points | JCPA People Who's Who at the Jerusalem Center (in alphabetical order): Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror - Program Director, Institute for Contemporary Affairs Mark Ami-El - Director of Publications Lenny Ben-David - Consultant, Internet Publications Professor Gerald B. Bubis - Vice President Dan Diker - Senior Policy Analyst Ambassador Freddy Eytan - Head of the Israel-Europe Project Professor Rela M. Geffen - Director, North American Office Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld - Chairman of the Board of Fellows Chaya Herskovic - Director General Zvi R. Marom - Former Director General Professor Shmuel Sandler - Editor, Jewish Political Studies Review Sharon Shenhav - Director, International Jewish Women's Rights Project Professor Gerald M. Steinberg - Editor, NGO Monitor Justus Reid Weiner - Scholar-in-Residence Administrative Personnel Steering Committee of the Board of Fellows Fellows Mordechai Abir, Jerusalem *** Member of Board of Directors Board of Overseers * Member of the Executive Committee Associates |
10 August, 2011 - 13:04 Rate this: 0 points | But what about the people who were actually born there and whose families go back generations? You mean like the Jews who can trace their lineage back generations. Arabs make up nearly 20% of the population who is being expelled? Just remember this land was never an Arab State even when the Jordaninas illegally occupied it between 1948-67 no-one talked about Judea and samaria being called Palestine and in fact the PLO's original charter in 1964 specifically excluded it from being part of such a state. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:05 Rate this: 0 points | And when, wannabe, was there an independent Jewish state there? In a form recognisable today? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:10 Rate this: 0 points | Millis it is obvious that anything even slightly to the right of extreme left is biased in your book. Are you therefore accusing Mr Weiner of lying when he writes that the Arab sector have enough permits to build sufficient housing until 2020, if so please say so? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:13 Rate this: 0 points | 'Just remember this land was never an Arab State even when the . . . .' But there was never an Israeli state there either - until people like you came and stole it. So it's not too late to give the Palestinians at least a little bit of Mandate Palestine. Or do you want to steal it all? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:15 Rate this: 0 points | Ah at last we get to it Millis does not support the right of the Jewish people to self determination in its ancient homeland. Let me seee when was there an independent Indian state in a form recognisable today? When was there an independent Pakistani state in a form recognisable today? Does that make them any less legitimate? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:17 Rate this: 0 points | Ah Rushkin the old anti-Semitic trope - the Jews stole it! You are in good company Millis. Rushkin I suggest you read the Mandate that was handed to Great Britain before you start accusing the Jews of stealing the land. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:18 Rate this: 0 points | The Israeli Interior Ministry recently announced (July 2011)that the number of settlers rose by over 14,000 in the past year. This has been the going rate for the past few years, but considering the 10 month settlement freeze in 2010, it’s an astonishing number. With over 330,000 settlers in the West Bank the Bantustan scenario is quickly turning into a reality. Israel = Apartheid |
10 August, 2011 - 13:21 Rate this: 0 points | Of course the land was stolen. And it still is being stolen today. What else would you call it? People were living in Palestine. They were thrown out of their homes and expelled from their lands. That's known as stealing. It's all fact. Just look at any map and see the hundreds of Arab village in Palestine. Where are those villages now? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:23 Rate this: 0 points | For Rushkin's education: The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self -governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. However Great Britain reneged on this and gave most of the land to the Hashemites to form the modern state of Jordan so in fact the Jews stole nothing much of what was supposed to have been the Jewish homeland was stolen from them. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:25 Rate this: 0 points | Oh dear he's on to apartheid now - there is is no point arguing with a bigot so I won't. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:27 Rate this: 0 points | That's disingenuous, Wannabe. It's also whataboutery. Jews, like all other people, have a right to self-determination. But who ever asked Jews if they wanted to exercise that right? And when was the last time there was a Jewish state in a modern form? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:29 Rate this: 0 points | And who is Weiner to determine whether the Arabs had sufficient permits or not, given that he is in the pay of an extreme right wing negationtionist institute? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:35 Rate this: 0 points | There you go Millis the gift that keeps on giving. You dodge the question because you are unable to find any source that disproves Mr Weiner. How do I know you've been looking and you've come up empty handed it's because you are reduced to an ad hominem attack on me. As i said look up what whataboutery actually means the CIf Watch article is a good starting point. There is no point in debating with a bigot so I won't. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:36 Rate this: 0 points | The situation in the occupied West bank is apartheid. There is no doubt about that. What happened to the hundreds of Arab villages in Palestine? Where are they now? |
10 August, 2011 - 13:40 Rate this: 0 points | The system that operates in the West Bank is dependent on the national identity of the person. Jews are treated under one law and Palestinian Arabs under another law (military law) that is apartheid. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:52 Rate this: 0 points | CiFWatch? Another bunch of seriously one-eyed numpties. Watch sites are only for the bitter and twisted. can't you do better, please, wannabe? Weiner works for a nagationist organisation. It's like asking Adalah to determine if Israeli Jews get enough housing permits. He is in no position to determine because of those who employ him. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:52 Rate this: 0 points | CiFWatch? Another bunch of seriously one-eyed numpties. Watch sites are only for the bitter and twisted. can't you do better, please, wannabe? Weiner works for a nagationist organisation. It's like asking Adalah to determine if Israeli Jews get enough housing permits. He is in no position to determine because of those who employ him. |
10 August, 2011 - 13:59 Rate this: 0 points | Well it must be getting close to your bedtime. Are you allowed up after 4? |
10 August, 2011 - 14:56 Rate this: 0 points | "But there was never an Israeli state there either - until people like you came and stole it." says Rushkin. That statement says it all. Maybe if we stopped responding to him, he'll go away. Maybe if there was a nominal fee to blog here, it would keep out the anti-semites. |
17 August, 2011 - 11:02 Rate this: 0 points | If you want 'proof' to support your claims, go to those on your side who provide the facts you want to hear and none of the ones you don't. Thus, Advis3r proves his every claim. Here's a few impressively neutral-sounding bodies:- Meanwhile, back in the real world (if Advis3r can remember where that is) can you really justify the takeover of land on the grounds it belonged (allegedly) to your ancestors 3,000 years ago? If you can, then I'd better prepare to be ejected from my home in northern England by the descendants of Anglo-Saxons now living in Wales. You mention India and Pakistan, now nations whose statehood is recognised (therefore justified???) by the fact that they came into existence as an aftermath of years of conquest by the British Empire. Does that mean those peoples didn't exist before? No. It means they once did but they've been conquered into non-existence. Like the Palestinians Israel now edges out of their ancestral land. Ancestors, Shmancestors. What comes around, goes around. What Israel MUST do now, in today's world, is use the wisdom and intelligence our Jewish ancestors HAVE accumulated, to find ways of behaving honestly towards those other humans they are currently scheming to make non-existent. It's not easy. But we Jews will be hugely respected across the world, if Israel can think up honest ways to do this. |
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Joe Millis
10 August, 2011 - 08:49
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Whataboutery from the wannabe. Jews who build without licence in Israel get a slap on the wrist, at most. Arabs, who can rarely get licences because of discrimination, get their houses demolished.