Roy Sesana
Roy Sesana , actually Tobee Tcori in his own language , (date of birth unknown (around 1950) in Molapo , Bechuanaland , today Botswana ) is a human rights activist from the San people who , together with the organization First People of Kalahari, campaigns for the rights of the San begins. For his work, he and the organization received the Right Livelihood Award 2005.
Life
Roy Sesana lives as a traditional medicine man in New Xade , a town near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in the Central Kalahari . He spent a few years in South Africa and returned to his people in 1971 to live with them on the reservation .
In 1991 Sesana was one of the founders of the First People Of The Kalahari (FPK), which campaigns intensively for the rights of the San and, above all, the right to the traditional way of life in the reservation, which was done precisely for this purpose on the advice of the anthropologist George Silberbauer Was founded in 1961, wants to prevail. Sesana was chairman of the organization from 1995 to 2000, but then resigned to promote information work within the San.
After various conferences and discussions about land rights and use took place in the 1980s and 1990s, the central goal of the reserve was changed and it was to become a reserve to protect the wildlife, the San ( Gana and Gwi ) were initially tolerated. In 1997 they who lived in the reserve were moved by the state government to the newly created New Xade , and in 2002 the Bakgalagadi were also brought here. The government officials destroyed the wells and threatened the San with penalties if they were to return to the reservation, but around 200 San have re-entered the reservation and are living there in makeshift settlements. They are subjected to persecution and torture because you give them poaching accused and the brother Sesanas died in 2004 after being out of rangers was beaten.
Roy Sesana continued to stand up for the work and called on the San to leave the government cities, which he referred to as the "Places of Death". Together with 248 San, he initiated legal proceedings against the government of Botswana, which is also considered symbolic for the dealings with indigenous peoples worldwide and is observed with international interest. The original indictment from 2002 was lost due to technical inconsistencies; a retrial is not expected to take place until 2006 at the earliest. In advance, however, the Botswana government announced that if it loses, it will change the laws so that it can continue its program unhindered.
On September 24, 2005, Roy Sesana and at least 20 other San were arrested and jailed for attempting to penetrate the central sanctuary of the Kalahari. Sesana was released on bail on September 27, and on September 29, he and the First People Of The Kalahari were awarded the Right Livelihood Award .
After Roy Sesana and the San people had enforced their right to live and stay in the Central Kalahari National Park by court order against the Botswana government, they were now given the right to drill wells for the vital drinking water again.
Quotes
- "We want to live on our land and determine our own way of life." (Roy Sesana, April 2002)
- “Now we must leave our graves behind and leave. The government sees no problem in taking us from our ancestral land and transplanting us elsewhere. Our own culture and our community life have been destroyed, nobody respects these things, there is no democracy for us. ” (Roy Sesana, October 2001)
Individual evidence
- ↑ tagesschau.de September 25, 2011
Web links
- Portrait on the website of the Right Livelihood Award (English)
- “Buschmann Victory: Alternative Nobel Prize” on www.survival-international.de
- "Without our country we die" Source: OEW
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sesana, Roy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Human rights activist and winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize 2005 |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1950 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Molapo , Bechuanaland |