Verlorenes Land? Indigene (Land)Rechte der San in Botswana

After numerous threats to forcefully evict the 2.300 G|wi and ||Gana San from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the Government of Botswana set this startling step in the years 1997 and 2002. The evicted groups in question are those indigenous peoples, who have been subject of countless documentaries, press-reports and (popular-)scientific works as "archetypal hunter-gatherers" of southern Africa. The ruling of the High Court of Botswana in December 2006 in favour of the indigenous land rights of the San was all the more remarkable, as at the same time, Botswana, as a prime mover, launched a global polical campaign against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These two legal processes - the development of a global legal standard on one side and the Botswana High Court review of state politics on the other side - form the two poles of this publication, which are in multiple ways associated with each other. For this reason, the book focuses both on the local governance of Botswana in relation to its indigenous peoples (in comparison to other countries in Southern Africa), and on the universal Human Rights initiatives towards indigenous rights and their (potential) implications for national modes of developmental politics and governance. Since Botswana has neiter recognized "its" indigenous peoples nor their (indigenous) landrights so far, I considered it necessary for the general understanding to discuss at first the international (section 1) and then the regional african legal status (section 2) for their protection. In order to assess adequate state (developmental) policies as well as the Botswana High Court decision, it appeared essential to question the relationships in the context of legal pluralism. The central actors of this work are the descendants of the "hunter-gatherers", first resident in Botswana. Their differing, but comparable historical experiences with landloss meant frequently an extensive or complete loss of their cultures, identities, forms of selfdetermination, territories and natural resources (section 3). It appeared important to review the (socio-)political history of the country and the legal developments until the present to throw some light on the marginalized position of the San communities in Botswana today (section 4). Although the Republic of Botswana characterizes itself as a country, where good governance, rule of law and democracy prevail, various state agencies showed an attitude towards the San and minorities, which has been classified by many as disparaging, paternalistic and assimilatory. In the discourse related to the development policies of state representatives, such local communities were treated with a stigma of underdevelopment and, furthermore, as a threat for the process of postcolonial nationbuilding (section 5). The actual central part of this work (section 6) is devoted to the set of problems that came with the relocation of the San and their litigation against it. The High Court ruled unanimously in favour of their undoubtedly most important petition, the determination of their landrights. In the legal struggle for the "lost lands" of the Kalahari, the San at least succeeded with a partial victory. Connected with this are the groundbreaking developments for the protection of indigenous rights on the African continent.