New Xade is a village located in the central part of the
Ghanzi District
Ghanzi (sometimes Gantsi) is a Districts of Botswana, district in western Botswana, bordering Namibia in the west and extending east into much of the interior of the country. The district's administrative centre is the town of Ghanzi. Most of the e ...
of
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
. The population was 1,690 in 2021 census.
A Relocation Settlement
In 1997, 1739 San (
Bushmen
The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the Indigenous peoples of Africa, oldest surviving cultures of the region. They are thought to have diverged fro ...
) and other residents of the CKGR (including the Bakgalagadi) were relocated from the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve
Central Kalahari Game Reserve is an extensive list of national parks of Botswana, national park in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana. Established in 1961 it covers an area of (larger than the Netherlands, and almost 10% of Botswana's total land are ...
by the Botswana government as part of the largest resettlement program ever undertaken in the country. 1239 of these relocated to Kg’oesakene (New Xade) and 500 to Kaudwane, outside the southern border of the CKGR in the Kwaneng district. The former settlement, intended to be named Kg'oesakene, meaning “looking for life”, by the residents, has come to be known by its administrative name, New Xade. A further resettlement of Central Kalahari residents took place in 2002. The government justified the relocation in order to conserve natural resources, provide services such as healthcare and education in a more practical manner, and to promote community development amongst the San. New Xade is located about 100 km from
Ghanzi
Ghanzi is a town in the middle of the Kalahari Desert the western part of the Republic of Botswana in southern Africa. The region is the country's pride in contributing a large portion towards the beef industry. In fact, Ghanzi farmers provide a ...
, the district capital, and 70 km from Xade, the former settlement in the CKGR for most of the residents. Although the residents were compensated for material possessions such as their huts, livestock and any other infrastructure they left behind, former Xade residents received no monetary remuneration or entitlement to the land they left behind. They did, however, receive plots in the newly created New Xade.
Ethnic Groups and Languages Spoken
There are a variety of ethnic groups present in New Xade. The three primary
Khoe groups for which the settlement was created, all of whom were relocated from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, are the G/ui (Dcuikhoe), G//ana (Dxanakhoe), and the Bakgalagadi. The indigenous languages spoken by these groups are
G/ui (Dcui),
G, , ana (Dxana), and Sekgalagadi, respectively. With the growing presence of extension workers and nationalized education, Setswana is spoken widely and English fluency is increasing. Literacy, however is low in
Setswana
Tswana, also known by its native name Setswana, is a Bantu language indigenous to Southern Africa and spoken by about 8.2 million people. It is closely related to the Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalaga ...
and English and nonexistent in G/ui and G, , ana as these languages do not yet have an institutionalized orthography.
With the presence of government extension workers and entrepreneurs, there are also a considerable number of Tswana residents, each with their own dialects, as well as a growing number of Naro residents who have come from neighboring settlements and Ghanzi farms. Most of the children residing in New Xade's primary school hostel speak the
Naro language
Naro , also Nharo, is a Khoe language spoken in Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia. It is one of the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages. Naro is a trade language among speakers of different Khoe languages in Ghanzi Dist ...
as they belong to the Naro ethnic group which occupies the areas around Ghanzi township and the Ghanzi farming block. Many of the hostel boarders were removed from situations of child labor on the Tswana cattle posts and
Boer
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
-owned farms in Ghanzi through the work of
Thuto Isago Trust
''Thuto'' is the third studio album by South African recording artist and record producer Cassper Nyovest. A follow-up to his 2015 album '' Refiloe'', ''Thuto'' was released on 5 May 2017 by his imprint Family Tree Records with support from Bridg ...
, a child labor and education project based in Ghanzi. It should also be noted that a large number of the Bakgalagadi residents came from
Kweneng
Kweneng is a village in Kweneng District of Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the ...
district to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities in the newly created settlement and to live closer to relatives involved in the relocation.
Effects of the Resettlement
From 2000 to 2001, an anthropological study was undertaken in New Xade by a Japanese anthropologist named Junko Maruyama to determine the impacts of the resettlement on the livelihood and social relationships of the relocates and to demonstrate how the residents have coped with the new situation and environment. At the time of the study, the population of the settlement was estimated to be 1100, consisting mainly of the San from the G/ui and G//ana language groups. The total populations of these two groups in Botswana are about 2350 and 1550, respectively (Cassiday, 2001). Therefore, the settlement contained approximately a quarter of the total G, ui and G, , ana population in Botswana in the early 2000s, though that fraction has most likely increased in the past 6 years. It is difficult to know the exact number of people belonging to each ethnic group in the area, because the identity is flexible and inter-ethnic marriage occurs frequently among the G, ui, G, , ana, Kgalagadi, and Naro.
According to Maruyama (2003), the lifestyle and residential pattern in New Xade changed drastically. New Xade currently has numerous facilities more typical of a large village in Botswana than a settlement: in the center, there is a large modern clinic and maternity ward (no longer used), primary school, tribal administration and police office, workshop, hostel, adult education center, local craft store, and mini-RAC with offices for Social & Community Development, Culture & Youth, Agriculture, and Rural Area Development Program. The Social and Community Development office currently has a bakery project in New Xade, which sells bread to the primary school once a week. A trailer run by Be-mobile offering internet and computing services was installed in 2012.
According to the research conducted by J. Maruyama, there are two main things that have been changed due to the 1997 resettlement program. First, although the residents’ access to social and economic welfare program improved, their access to natural resources declined significantly. Consequently, people were forced to shift their principal means of livelihood from hunting and gathering to wage labor and agropastoralism. Second, San families ceased to form the camps that had functioned as a production-consumption unit. Furthermore, the residential mobility decreased; they were no longer allowed to move anywhere they liked, as was the custom.
Relocation Controversy & Court Case
The Botswana Government's relocation program has contributed to an international controversy fueled by a London-based NGO called
Survival International
Survival International is a human rights organisation formed in 1969, a London based charity that campaigns for the collective rights of Indigenous, tribal and uncontacted peoples.
The organisation's campaigns generally focus on tribal people ...
. The protest raised by Survival International (SI) and other international organizations is based on the claim that indigenous peoples worldwide have a right to their ancestral land. These organizations have compared the dispossession of the San in the Kalahari to that of other indigenous peoples by colonial governments in other parts of the world. However, the Botswana government does not accept the concept of “indigenous peoples” and has not ratified international treaties that identify the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples, such as Convention No. 169 of the International Labour Organization. According to SI, even if the San have no legal right to live in the CKGR (which SI does not accept), the San were undoubtedly in possession of their settlements at the date of the relocations. SI argues that the San were deprived of that possession against their free will, and that they are therefore entitled to be restored to their possessions under the doctrine of "spoliation", which formed the basis of SI and
First People of the Kalahari
First People of the Kalahari (FPK) was a local advocacy organisation in Botswana that worked for the rights of the indigenous San who had been forced by the Government of Botswana to resettle to the new built town of New Xade. The organization wa ...
’s claims against the Government of Botswana in a landmark court case. Though the court case was decided in December 2006 in favor of the San applicants, it has been argued that the Botswana Government has not followed through with the ruling and is unlawfully preventing the former CKGR residents from returning to their home villages in the CKGR by preventing access to hunting licenses and boreholes for water.
The Botswana Government justified its conduct on various grounds. It has invoked the need to protect the viability of the wildlife population in the Reserve; the prohibitive cost of the provision of basic services to the settlements; and its desire to introduce the San to the mainstream of Botswana society and development.
Survival International has also launched an extensive campaign against the government and the
DeBeers
The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...
Diamond Company claiming that diamond prospecting was one of the primary reasons for the relocation. Though the government denies any such allegations, the campaign has threatened both the tourism and diamond industries of Botswana, its two biggest assets. In May 2007, DeBeers sold its shares in a diamond deposit at Gope (in southeastern CKGR) to Gem Diamonds. In 2008, initial plans were announced to open a mine at Gope through
Gem Diamonds
Gem Diamonds is a British-based global diamond mining business. It is headquartered in London and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. In 2017, the company generated a profit of $20.8 million.
History
The business was founded by Clifford Elph ...
Ltd. and tenders were awarded for tourist lodges within the CKGR. One such tender for a planned lodge development at Molapo, a Bushmen community in the CKGR from which many New Xade residents were relocated, was put out by the government and awarded to the Safari Adventure Company, a subsidiary of
Wilderness Safaris
History and impact
Wilderness was founded in 1983 by safari guides Colin Bell and Chris McIntyre, originally operating out of Maun, Botswana, near the Okavango Delta. The company was the first tour operator of its kind to register a formal bus ...
, a South African business.
The Botswana government has openly and harshly criticized the claims and tactics of SI calling them “a cheap, calculated and malicious use of the San of the Central Kgalagadi as a fundraising gimmick.” Furthermore, the Government has sponsored numerous “fact-finding” missions into the CKGR and resettlement sites for foreign diplomats in an effort to dispel SI's claims.
Notable residents
Roy Sesana
Roy Sesana (born c. 1950) is a San activist who worked together with the First People of the Kalahari for the rights of his people.
Biography
Sesana lives in New Xade in the central Kalahari and works as a traditional medicine man. He moved t ...
: Human rights activist (co-founder of
First People of the Kalahari
First People of the Kalahari (FPK) was a local advocacy organisation in Botswana that worked for the rights of the indigenous San who had been forced by the Government of Botswana to resettle to the new built town of New Xade. The organization wa ...
) and winner of the
Right Livelihood Award
The Right Livelihood Award is an international award to "honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today." The prize was established in 1980 by German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob vo ...
for his work defending the land rights of CKGR residents.
Kuela Kiema: Human rights activist (board member of First Peoples Worldwide) and producer of indigenous music album "Bilo Bilo Heri".
Jumanda Gakelebone: Human rights activist. Spokesperson for First People of the Kalahari.
Kgosi Lobatse Beslag: Current Chief of New Xade. Member of the House of Chiefs. Participated in numerous international tours to defend government relocation policy. Advocates for sustainable income-generation projects in rural settlements.
Councilor Paepae Raseme: Current Councilor of New Xade.
References
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Ghanzi District
Villages in Botswana