Land Restitution and the Communities of North-Eastern Botswana, 1889–2012

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper argues that land alienation that occurred in the Tati District (North East District) of Botswana can best be returned to its original inhabitants through land restitution. This is because the Tati is unique from other districts in that other districts did not suffer from severe or intense colonial land alienation, whilst the Tati, in many ways, resembled the overcrowded and impoverished African reserves of the settler dominated territories of Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa, which had large prosperous farms for white farmers. It holds that a historical wrong was committed in the Tati and that this justifies land restitution. The paper concurs with the contention that the Market Based Land Reform (MBLR) programme which adopts the ‘Willing Buyer–Willing Seller’ (WBWS) approach adopted by the Botswana government since independence to ease the land shortage in the Tati District has not succeeded. The land restitution process in South Africa is used as a case for adoption in Tati. The paper acknowledges the complexities of the process there, and proposes that the situation in Botswana is somewhat different. It is argued that in Botswana, the economic empowerment measures that are currently in place, particularly the agricultural schemes would to a large extent overcome some of the major challenges of land restitution in the Tati.