Five years ago, on 13 December 2006, Botswana's high court ruled that the government's eviction of the Bushmen from their ancestral lands in the Kalahari had been illegal. It was one of the most hopeful stories to come out of Africa in decades. It began in stark tragedy, in the central Kalahari game reserve, ceded in perpetuity to the Bushmen by the British and then by the first government of independent Botswana. Five thousand Gana, Gwi and Tsila Bushmen lived there. ("Bushmen" is the name they mostly prefer.)
In February 2002 the Botswanan army raided the reserve. The soldiers charged into small desert villages and ordered people, at gunpoint, to get into the trucks that were drawn up outside. They were driven to camps outside their ancestral lands. Another group of soldiers made sure that they couldn't go back to their villages: in Gugama, for example, they smashed the well and sealed it with concrete.
There is something peculiarly repellent about blocking off the water supply in a desert. And when the president of the country called the Bushmen "primitive stone-age creatures" who were to be swept into the dustbin of history, it seemed like an offence against our common humanity. The camps set up for the Bushmen were disgusting places where rape, prostitution and drunkenness were rampant. I visited a camp called New Xade secretly with a film crew, who were visibly shocked by what we saw.
Many campaigners believe the reason for the eviction is clear. By an unfortunate geological chance, the central Kalahari game reserve lies right in the middle of the world's richest diamond-producing area. The diamond deposit at Gope, in the centre of the reserve, is valued at $3.3bn.
Some Bushmen families managed to escape the army's brutal raids, and stayed on. They even ignored the ban that the government had imposed on their traditional methods of hunting. But they had shocking tales to tell of the cruelty of some of the wardens who staffed the reserve. One summer, for instance, a group of men from Gugama decided to make the trip to a trading-post, 40 miles away, to buy some urgently needed water for their families. Each man carried several gallons on his back. When they arrived at the reserve gates, the wardens forced them to pour the water out on the ground, and laughed as they did it.
The ethnic cleansing of the Kalahari was a horror story, and in many countries that is how it would have remained. But Botswana is not a dictatorship; it's a stable, wealthy country with a free press and judiciary. An intensive campaign by organisations such as Survival International led to a legal challenge to the Bushmen's eviction, and the ruling was overturned in 2006. The Bushmen, the judges said, had the right to live on their ancestral lands, to hunt and gather there in traditional fashion, without official permits.
It was a magnificent victory, but it wasn't the end. Last year the high court, which had found for the Bushmen four years earlier, now found for the government. The Bushmen had brought another case after they were prevented from using the well, now full of concrete.
Nevertheless, in a decision in January this year the Botswanan appeals court found that the Bushmen did indeed have the right to use the well, and to sink new ones. The court said that the government's conduct towards the Bushmen had been "degrading".
Some important changes have now taken place. Hundreds of Bushmen have returned from the resettlement camps, and a South African organisation, Vox United, plans to drill more wells next year. Mining for diamonds will start in 2013, but Gem Diamonds, which bought the rights from De Beers, is working with the Bushmen on it. Even the Botswanan press, which used to be fiercely against the Bushmen, has changed.
The Bushmen of Botswana have been terribly damaged, but recovery now seems possible. I cannot forget interviewing a woman in Gugama after the army raids on her land. "It belonged to our grandfathers and grandmothers, and now it belongs to us," she said. "I will never leave it. I will be proud to die here. More than proud."
By John Simpson, who reported extensively on the Bushmen for the BBC and has supported Survival International for more than 20 years.