/ The Multicultural Coalition of Botswana
P.O. Box 5346
Gaborone, Botswana
Plot 1225 Haille Silassie Road
Tel: 267 318-7642 Fax: 267 318-7643
Cell: +267 722 994 32

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Universal Periodic Review – Follow Up: Botswana

This brief report is prepared by RETENG: The Multicultural Coalition of Botswana. A draft was prepared by the Secretary General and shared with members of the Board to submit their comments by August 4, 2011. The report focuses on recommendations related to standards as contained in International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The report gives a brief situation on each recommendation as at August 2011. It classifies actions as eitherpositive, negative or look-warm. In brackets is the number of the recommendation as it appears in the UPR report.

  1. (1) Adhere to the International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.
  • In 2009, Government ratified the International Convention on Cultural Heritage. Each year the Department of Arts and Culture commissions a study in certain areas. In those areas that the tribe is recognized it will be a study of the culture of that tribe specifically. For instance, the first study was on the Bakgatla tribe, excluding other tribes living in the same district. If the area is inhabited by a non-recognised tribe, the study will focus on all cultures without specifying the tribes under study – since there are not recognized. Thus the second study was on the Chobe district – emphasis is on the area and not a specific people. The majority tribe in this area is the Vekuhane.The idea is to document the cultural heritage for posterity and storage in archives locally and abroad.
  • Since 2008, Government declared July as the month of Cultural Heritage – each year celebrations are organized by the Department of Arts and Culture in various parts of the country. This has assisted in reviving cultures which were disappearing.
  • During the same month comes the President’s Day celebrations which focus on cultural revival. The Department of Arts and culture dictates the dances and other categories for competitions. This ensures that other groups are excluded from competitions. Choral music has been restricted to Setswana songs only and therefore groups which sing such music in their languages are excluded. Dance groups which make it to the finals in the capital city, are those not associated with RETENG and its member organizations. For the past four years, the same groups have been competing while others have been systematically excluded. Those who make it are used to advertise tourism by the Botswana tourism board. They are not acknowledged nor do they benefit from advertising. The voices are suppressed to conceal their identities. The result is, people see them on television but would not know who they are, what areas they come from. But those who know them rejoice and they too see themselves and rejoice. The advertisements also project the cultural diversity of the country which is a good thing.
  • In April, 2011, a motion was tabled in Parliament by a member of the opposition, calling on the State to sign, ratify and domesticate the ICESCR. Parliament decided that the motion should be modified to read that government should develop a plan for ratifying the covenant. Many people viewed this modification as a delaying tactic since Government has ratified other conventions without a written plan on how to do it. Most of the arguments from members of the ruling party who make the majority, were that it is not necessary to ratify when there will be no money to implement.Thisattitude is consistent with the reaction to recommendation 14 on the UPRwhich government rejected. It seems that lip-service is paid to the intention to develop a plan on how to ratify when in fact, the attitude is very hard against it.

Classification: This is aLuke-warm or grey area in which positive things are happening, but blurred by discriminatory elements of seclusion.

  1. (7 & 96) Efforts to achieve Universal basic Primary Education and drop-out rates
  • No efforts have been put in place to bring children of school-going age who are not in school. According to UNICEF 2008, and 2011 (August presentation), only 22% of children in poor areas who should be in school are in school. The reasons for not going to school have mainly been due to language of instruction, unfriendly classroom environment due to lack of respect of cultural differences by teachers, poverty – not have enough money to buy clothes, and distance from school.
  • To-date there are no deliberate efforts targeted to each of these factors. There is no evidence of reduction in drop-out rates in both primary and secondary schools. At junior secondary school, the major reasons have been cost sharing, and teenage pregnancy due to the deterioration of cultural values as a result of assimilation policies, encouraging people to strive to be what they are not and run away from their cultural values as much as possible.
  • Cost sharing has affected access to Junior secondary school, especially in poor rural areas.

Classification: This is negative area – in which government has to be assisted to realize that culturally relevant education is quality education. The elimination of local languages and cultures is a disadvantage in achieving access to quality basic education.

  1. (8) Continue to fight poverty – with support of International community
  • In 2009, Government started a campaign to eradicate poverty in its totality. A number of programs which have been in place before 2009 continued and new ones were introduced. These include programs in farming, youth development fund projects and village visits by the President and at least four ministers to each village.
  • Implementation processes have rendered these programs non-accessible to many people they were intended for. For instance, the farming program was to provide seeds to farmers, plough their fields and buy their products. There were not enough tractors to do the farming for all farmers across the country and while some received the seeds, they could not sow as the raining season went by while waiting for tractors. The other problem was the requirement of providing Curriculum Vitae from farmers when applying for the funds. This was seen as a hindrance, a gate keeping process in some areas where discrimination was to be applied.
  • While the programs have good intentions, there are less likely to address poverty because implementation is issues are too complex to yield result. It is not targeted to areas where pockets of gross poverty is found, but general and current statistics show that most youth programs benefit those in cities and big villages. There programs are implemented within a context of tribal discrimination, as well as partisan politics. As a result, there are seen as mere rewards for those loyal to the ruling party as well as to those who have accepted tribal discrimination. The slogan for the ruling party during the last elections was ‘come to food, if you go elsewhere, what will you eat’. Thus the programs are seen as political tools to attract voters than to sincerely address poverty. Most importantly, they are seen as programs that aim to ‘give people fish’ than rather than to ‘teach one how to fish’. They are not sustainable.
  • For four years public servants have not had salary increases. The prices for food, water, power, alcohol levy, traffic charges and income taxes have increased. This means it is becoming difficult for them to support their relatives in rural poor areas, and poverty is most likely to increase. Eventually, these people will not be able to support their children in private schools, buy cars, build houses and the economy will collapse, due to fewer jobs in these sectors. Public service is the engine of the economy and if not well paid, productivity will continue to go down, investors will not be happy due to poor work ethics and the economy willcollapse.
  • With increases in taxes and others mentioned above, government generates enough funds by impoverishing its people. Funds generated are used to visit villages at least twice a week, to pay subsistence allowances to accompanying Ministers. At the end of the day, Botswana will have a rich government with very poor people, including civil servants.
  • It is important for government to move from one size fits all approach to development and provide different programs for different levels of poverty. The programs must be conceptualized with the people in each area to see how they can utilize their environment to reduce poverty in sustainable ways.
  • Poverty is by and large a result of discrimination. Unless government deals with its discrimination policies and practices, which are along tribal and political lines, these programs will continue to exclude the non-recognised, rural poor. Poverty will continue to increase. For instance, if government recognizes that the San people own the land they live on, then investors would be encouraged to give shareholding rights to them for their land, and the funds will build schools, provide water, and create employment within those communities. Currently, people living in areas where the wealth of the country is generated live in poverty, For instance, the Okavango and Chobe areas are the engines of tourism, but the ordinary citizens are most poverty stricken, they are observers and not participants in this wealth generation process.
  • It is difficult to alleviate people who are classified in the Constitution as sub-human from poverty. The government has to recognize the link between discrimination and poverty and re-train its employees to implement development programs equitably.
  • It is important to study the impact of the various programs government has put in place on the very poor.
  • If government values discrimination so much as to reject all recommendation for its abolition, how can it practice this discrimination more effectively,if not through economic deprivation. All forms of discrimination result in poverty. By cherishing tribal discrimination, government has generated and continues to generate poverty.

Classification: This is a negative area – funds are used for non-sustainable efforts/programs. Very few benefit long term through systemic exclusion.

  1. (17&95) Establishment of National Commission on Human Rights- No effort as yet.
  2. (23) Negotiations with Residents of Central Kalahari Game Reserve ( a rejected one)
  • No formal process of negotiations in place. The government narrowly defined the court ruling and allowed only those people whose names appeared on the court list as complainants. The Basarwa are still denied hunting licenses in the CKGR, the companies which invest in the reserve use their own discretion as to how they can assist the residents. Government event attempts to intimidate some of them when they do social responsibility programs in the CKGR.
  • The right thing to do is for government to resuscitate the boreholes which were destroyed in 2002 with assistance from companies investing in the CKGR. These companies should be encouraged to give shareholding rights to the Basarwa, provide a quota for jobs at every level for Basarwa and ensure that they are able to eventually establish their own similar companies. One of the companies, Wilderness Holdings is assisting in employing the Basarwa people as well as poor minority communities in the Okavango and Chobe. With government putting in place the right policies such companies can alleviate the Basarwa and others minorities from poverty.

Classification: Negative – Basarwa and other ethnic groups should be recognized to enjoy all the economic, social and cultural rights.

  1. (29) Continue efforts to achieve the goals of Vision 2016
  • One of the goals of vision 2016 to have ‘no child disadvantaged’ as a result of a mother tongue that is different from the school language. To date there are no efforts put in place to prepare for mother tongue education. The Assistant Minister of Local Government stated in a panel discussion that her ministry is thinking of permitting the use of mother tongue only for the Basarwa children. But this statement was new and was viewed as the long standing lip-service to buy time to assimilate all children until they can speak Setswana in the home.
  • The 2011 National Housing and Population Census had a question on mother tongue. A week before the census, the question was removed as result of the directive from the President.

Classification on this particular goal: Negative – Quality education should be provided through mother tongue education.

  1. (45& 62) Mainstreaming Human Rights in the education system: No Action

Donor funding for multi-cultural and human rights education initiated by NGOs is discouraged.

Conclusion

The fact that Botswana rejected all recommendation calling on the removal of discrimination along ethnic, tribal, linguistic lines is evident that development of the people is at a distance. Botswana will achieve economic growth in terms of GDP but the people will remain poor as long as development is carried out on discriminatory lines with the rural non-Tswana speakers, who make 60% of the population being excluded.

Recommendation:Large villages should be converted into towns with Mayors as administrative heads. This will get rid of tribal administrations based on recognition and hegemony of only Tswana in those villages. This is more so in Ngamiland where there are only three (3) ethnic Batawana (excluding assimilados) and yet they rule over a population of more than 122 000. This is most poverty stricken area since the decision making process has been restricted to three people and the government.

Lydia Nyati-Saleshando (nee Ramahobo)

August 14, 2011.