Botswana imposes restrictions on critics

April 07 2007 at 01:39PM

In a move slammed as an attempt to muzzle critics in a country lauded as a paragon of democracy, Botswana has marked out a group of 17 foreign journalists, human rights activists and academics as now needing a visa to enter the country.

South Africa's The Weekender newspaper reported that the 17, who include the BBC's John Simpson and two journalists from the Financial Times, would now need to apply for a visa in advance of travelling to the southern African country.

Usually visitors to Botswana get a visa stamp in their passport directly on entry to the country.

An official had apparently explained the move to a local newspaper saying authorities wanted to know when the targeted individuals visited Botswana "so that we can give them any assistance they need."

Click here!

But Stephen Corry, who was named on the list along with three other colleagues from Survival International, a London-based group fighting for the rights of aboriginal people worldwide, poured scorn on that explanation.

Corry noted that the list was "composed predominantly of human rights workers, academics and well-respected journalists who have taken an interest... in the plight of the Bushmen."

Late in 2006 a Botswanan court ordered that a group of indigenous Bushmen be allowed return to ancestral lands in a reserve from which they were evicted by the state between the late 1990s and 2002.

The government had argued the forced removal to formal settlements was in the Bushmen's best interest, while the Bushmen had accused the government of wanting to use the land for diamond prospecting.

Since the court ruling, Survival International has accused the government of trying to thwart the Bushmen's return to the reserve.

Botswana, an arid country of 1,7 million people, is the world's largest diamond producer and has one of the highest per-capita income levels on the continent. - Sapa-dpa