‎28 Sep 2006 Zimbabwe Zimbabwe: The continent's original people survive by begging Report — By Integrated Regional Information Networks

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BULAWAYO, 28 September (IRIN) - The remnants of Zimbabwe's San people are eking out an existence on the edge of oblivion.
About 1,200 San, or Bushmen, are surviving in grinding poverty through a lack of government support, low literacy levels and alleged discrimination, which has condemned them to a life on the fringes of society.

"Everyone here is poor. We are the poorest of the poor in this country. We have no food, no education. In the shops foodstuffs like maize-meal and sugar are currently available but most of our people cannot afford (the commodities) because they don't have the money," Delani Mpofu said, a San spiritual leader who lives in Mgodimasili village, about 200 kilometres north of Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo.

About 1,500 years ago several million San people roamed southern Africa. There numbers fast dwindled with the arrival of cattle herding people from central Africa and white colonists from Europe and today the formerly nomadic people number less than 100,000.

Mpofu, sitting outside his basic mud and thatch hut in a hamlet that is home to about 200 San people, told IRIN the Amasili, the Ndebele word for the San, had met with government officials in the past, but nothing had been done to alleviate their plight.

"We have appealed to (the ruling Zanu-PF) government for projects that will help sustain our livelihoods, especially our children who still have the power to work.

"(We have asked for) essential facilities like clean water, standard housing and clinics but all we have got are promises and more promises," Mpofu said.
The San settlements of Mgodimasili, Makhulela and Tjitatjawa are all situated in the drought-prone Matabeleland North province and are little more than rural slums.

Children appear severely malnourished, access to health facilities is extremely limited and the San's day-to-day survival is based on begging from nearby Ndebele and Kalanga communities.

Although the San communities are perceived as sowing the seeds of their own destruction through alcohol abuse, "laziness" and a deep-rooted culture of dependence, the San say it is the long history of discrimination that is leading to their demise.

Sol Ndlovu, the secretary-general of Zimbabwe's Association of Minority Languages, said the San were "simply a misunderstood, discriminated-upon and despised people, but with sterling capabilities, (and) if adequately aided resource-wise, (they can) pull themselves out of the abyss of hopelessness they find themselves into today."

"Government should do just more than talk. Even in years of bumper harvests the Bushmen have always struggled to make ends meet because they don't have farming inputs; here we are talking of draught power, fertilizers and seeds. NGOs have tried to help, but strictly speaking it is the duty of government to see to it that these people are equally catered for as other groups," Ndlovu told IRIN.

"Their children are virtually uneducated not because they don't want to learn but because they don't have money to pay for school fees. A concerted effort is needed to save these people," Ndlovu said.

The San, the sub-continent's original people, have probably felt the effects of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown most acutely.

The country's has the world's highest inflation rate, which is hovering at around 1,200 percent annually, suffers routine fuel and food shortages, is seeing unemployment levels above 70 percent and has witnessed steep rises in health and education costs.

The closest clinic servicing the three San villages is about 70 kilometres away, while the majority of the San's children have never set foot in a classroom and those that do only complete a couple of years schooling, because of unaffordable education costs.

The social welfare minister, Nicholas Goche, dismissed claim's by the San that the government was negligent in its treatment of them and said his ministry provided for needy people regardless of their ethnicity.

"That is not true. Our government is people oriented and we are there to develop every place and its people. Any concerns by anyone are seriously taken, looked into and addressed quickly, and the San are no exception to this," he said.

nn/go/oa
[ENDS]