BOTSWANA

officially Republic of Botswana, formerly Bechuanaland landlocked country in southern Africa. Consisting mostly of the Kalahari (desert), the country has a maximum length from north to south of about 600 miles (965 km) and a maximum width from east to west of about the same; it is bordered on the southeast and south by South Africa, on the west and northwest by Namibia, on the north by Zambia, and on the northeast and east by Zimbabwe. The capital is Gaborone. Area 224,607 square miles (581,730 square km). Pop. (1992 est.) 1,359,000. officially Republic of Botswana, formerly Bechuanaland, country in the centre of southern Africa. It has an area of 224,607 square miles (581,730 square kilometres). The territory is roughly squareapproximately 600 miles from north to south and 600 miles from east to westwith its eastern side protruding into a sharp point. Its eastern and southern borders are marked by river courses and an old wagon road; its western borders are lines of longitude and latitude through the Kalahari, and its northern borders combine straight lines with a river course. The capital is Gaborone (until 1969 spelled Gaberonesi.e., Gaborone's town), a new city founded in 1964. Botswana is bounded by Namibia to the west and north (the Caprivi Strip), Zambia and Zimbabwe to the northeast, and South Africa to the southeast and south. The Zambezi River border with Zambia is only several hundred yards long. The border along the main channel of the Chobe River up to the Zambezi is disputed with Namibia. The point at which the borders of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe meet in the middle of the river has therefore never been precisely determined. Before its independence in 1966, Botswana was a British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. It was also one of the poorest and least-developed states in the world. The country is named after its dominant ethnic group, the Tswana, or Batswana (Bechuana in older variant orthography). The national language is Setswana (or Sechuana), and the official language is English. Since its independence the Republic of Botswana has gained international stature as a peaceful and increasingly prosperous democratic state. It is a member of the United Nations, the Nonaligned Movement, the Commonwealth, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). The secretariat of SADCC is housed in Gaborone. Botswana is also a member (with South Africa) of the Southern African Customs Union and an associate of the European Community as a signatory of the Lom Convention. Additional reading Robson M.K. Silitshena and G. McLeod, Botswana: A Physical, Social, and Economic Geography (1989), briefly but authoritatively covers all aspects of Botswana's geography from climate to patterns of human settlement. Botswana Notes and Records (annual), is a scholarly journal covering research in natural and social science and in humanities. Botswana Society, The Botswana Society Social Studies Atlas (1988), contains maps of the country's physical and human geography and history as well as environmental and thematic maps of the southern African region. Studies of the plant and animal life include Ronald Daniel Auerbach, The Amphibians and Reptiles of Botswana (1987); Michael Main, Kalahari: Life's Variety in Dune and Delta (1987), a popular survey of scientific research on the natural and human aspects of the desert from prehistory to future prospects; Kenneth Newman, Newman's Birds of Botswana (1989); Mark Owens and Delia Owens, Cry of the Kalahari (1984); Karen Ross, Okavango: Jewel of the Kalahari (1987), an illustrated description of wetland wildlife and the environment of the delta; and David S.G. Thomas and Paul A. Shaw, The Kalahari Environment (1991), an extensive scholarly study of the Kalahari Basin, detailing present geology, tectonics, climate, and vegetation and discussing the findings of research on prehistoric lakes and rivers from the Cretaceous to the Quaternary as well as presenting debate on land use and water resources. Tore Janson and Joseph Tsonope, Birth of a National Language: The History of Setswana (1991), traces the development of a standardized national dialect beginning in the 19th century to the increasing distinction since the 1960s between Botswana and South African official Setswana. Studies of the people include Laurens Van der Post and Jane Taylor, Testament to the Bushmen (1984); Bessie Head, Serowe, Village of the Rainwind (1981), a novelist's view of local social history based on interviews; and Diana Wylie, A Little God: The Twilight of Patriarchy in a Southern African Chiefdom (1990), a historian's view of disappearing chieftainship. The economy is addressed in Christopher Colclough and Stephen McCarthy, The Political Economy of Botswana: A Study of Growth and Distribution (1980), a scholarly survey of economic development, 196577; Charles Harvey and Stephen R. Lewis, Jr., Policy Choice and Development Performance in Botswana (1990), an analysis of the successful government negotiation of terms with mining companies and the management of the resulting financial surplus; John Holm and Patrick Molutsi (eds.), Democracy in Botswana (1989), a collection of symposium proceedings that emphasizes the adaptation of indigenous institutions, the roles of bureaucrats and foreign capital, the group rights of cultural minorities, and the efficacy of regular general elections; and Louis A. Picard, The Politics of Development in Botswana: A Model for Success? (1987).Historical treatments include Thomas Tlou and Alec Campbell, History of Botswana (1984); Fred Morton, Andrew Murray, and Jeff Ramsay, Historical Dictionary of Botswana, new ed. (1989), a reference work with an excellent bibliography; Fred Morton and Jeff Ramsay (eds.), The Birth of Botswana: A History of the Bechuanaland Protectorate from 1910 to 1966 (1987), on the rise and fall of powerful local sovereignties headed by chiefs under colonial rule; Michael Crowder, The Flogging of Phineas McIntosh: A Tale of Colonial Folly and Injustice: Bechuanaland, 1933 (1988); Louis A. Picard (ed.), The Evolution of Modern Botswana (1985), the country's administrative history from the 1930s to postcolonial development; Michael Dutfield, A Marriage of Inconvenience: The Persecution of Ruth and Seretse Khama (1990); Jack Parson (ed.), Succession to High Office in Botswana: Three Case Studies (1990); and Jack Parson, Botswana: Liberal Democracy and the Labor Reserve in Southern Africa (1984). Neil Parsons Administration and social conditions Government Botswana is a unitary state with a multiparty parliamentary system and an executive presidency. Since independence, Botswana has had free elections every five years, a relatively uncorrupt bureaucracy, and judicial respect for human rights and the rule of law. The government has also distributed increasing resources widely if not always equally among the people. Parliament consists of a National Assembly of elected members (elected by universal adult suffrage in single-member constituencies) and a handful of ex officio members nominated by the ruling political party. There is also a House of Chiefs, with an advisory role on matters of legislation pertaining to tribal law and custom. The ruling party, first elected in 1965 and reelected at five-year intervals since then, is the Botswana Democratic Party. Its overwhelming majorities in elections have been based on rural support; opposition parties have drawn their strength generally from urban areas. The Botswana People's Party was the main opposition in the 1960s, when urban areas were small. Since then the Botswana National Front has grown in strength, holding the majority of the city council of Gaborone and both of Gaborone's parliamentary seats. Local councils, rural and urban, have been elected since 1969 simultaneously with national parliamentary elections. The power of local councils is limited by the right of the central government to nominate ex officio voting members and by central government appointment of supervisory district commissioners and planning staff. The political and economic alignments of Botswana's foreign policy are indicated by the places to which it has sent resident ambassadorsoriginally New York City and Washington, D.C., London, and Lusaka, Zambia, in the 1960s; followed by Brussels, Harare, Zimb., and Stockholm in the 1980s; and by Windhoek, Namibia, Moscow, and Peking in the early 1990s. Botswana declined to exchange direct diplomatic representatives with Pretoria, S.Af., in 1966. Education Since independence, enrollment at all levels of education has increased steadily. Enrollments are still about 10 percent short of universal primary education in the remote western and northwestern districts, however, where poorer non-Tswana children often miss out on school. International interest has been aroused by an alternative system of education, integrating vocational skills into the secondary curriculum, developed by the educationist Patrick van Rensburg at Swaneng Hill near Serowe. But education-with-development has had little impact on the general curriculum within Botswana's schools. A university campus in Gaborone, founded in 1976, became the University of Botswana in 1982. Officially, some 74 percent of the population is considered literate. This is probably an overestimate, however. Rural literacy rates are higher in the east and northeast and lower in the west and northwest. More women than men are literate, as many boys used to be employed in cattle herding rather than being sent to school. Cultural life The cultural life of Botswana reflects the dual heritage and intermingling of Tswana and English cultural domination. The two languages and cultures are subtly mixed and alternated in urban and official situations. Western dress has been general among people in Botswana, except at the poorest level, since the late 19th century. Common diet and cuisine consist of sorghum and corn porridge, beans and pulses and traditional spinach, supplemented by tomato, potato, onion, and cabbage usually purchased from stores. Meat consumption has become more common with the opening of small butcheries selling beef. Traditional foods include dried phane caterpillars from mopane woodland, eaten as relish or snacks, fruits such as the wild morulaplum, and beer made from sorghum or millet. Families in rural villages live in traditional compounds, usually with two or three small houses of cylindrical clay walls and conical thatch roofs, set around an open fireplace and surrounded by low clay walls. Most recent houses are square with metal roofs, while many houses in the northwest are made of reed. Rites of burial, marriage, and birth have been adapted to Christianity but remain extremely important in Botswana life. Traditional music, based on stringed instruments, and dance generally declined during the colonial period. After independence there was a revival of interest, particularly in music on the radio. The best-known modern art form incorporating traditional craftwork is basketrymost of it from northwestern Botswanawhich is widely exported overseas. The author Bessie Head (193786) wrote novels in English that reflect the contemporary realities and history of Serowe. The publishing of fiction in Setswana was revived in the 1980s. There is a national museum and art gallery in Gaborone and an increasing number of district museums founded by local community initiative. A national learned and scientific society, the Botswana Society, holds regular lectures and publishes an annual journal and books. Football (soccer) is the national sport, played on fields and in stadiums across the country every Saturday. The government issues a free daily newspaper, mostly in English, and runs a radio service, mostly in Setswana. There are also several separate private weekly newspapers, with circulation in eastern towns, and private local television stations, mostly relaying broadcasts from neighbouring countries. There is no government censorship. During the 1980s three multinational publishers set up branches to generate published materials for schools.