By Kris Axtman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

HOUSTON – It's been sitting in her apartment for 20 days, staring at her with small, unblinking eyes: a porcelain owl. Rahma Mohamud Gure is a Muslim, so the animal icon is taboo. But everything in her one-bedroom apartment here has been donated, so she doesn't feel comfortable complaining.
It's one of the most important cultural lessons that this Somali Bantu refugee will have to learn: speak up. Not only is the concept foreign - it can seem treacherous to people who've been persecuted for speaking their minds.

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Botswana's government is accused of the ethnic cleansing of the Kalahari Bushmen

It was not the warmest of African welcomes but under the circumstances it was hardly surprising. Deep in the Kalahari, the elderly Bushman woman picked up a billhook and waved it menacingly at the visitors approaching her homestead.

Clucking defiance in the distinctive click-based language of the Bushmen she spat and hissed, waving her spindly arms and making it perfectly clear that outsiders were not welcome.

The reason for her anger was all too apparent in the empty, derelict thatched huts of Kukama, a once crowded settlement which is now home to just two adult women and some children scrabbling around in the dirt.

Anthropologists have studied this phenomenon and believe there are several possibilities for its occurrence. It may have been due to a growing population in ancient times, which increased the need for more food. It was around this time that the banana, which is native to Asia, was introduced in southern Africa.

Another important occurrence in the history of the Bantu is a split that created two major language families. They are known as the Eastern Bantu and the Western Bantu. The Eastern Bantu migrated to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and down into South Africa. The Western Bantu migrated into Angola, Namibia, and parts of Botswana.

Currently the Bantu are known more as a language group than as a distinct ethnic group. Swahili is the most widely spoken Bantu language and is considered the lingua franca of around 50 million people living in the countries along the east coast of Africa.

The ethnic groups that make up the Eastern Bantu include the Xhosa, Zulu, Kikuyu, and Shona peoples. The Western Bantu include the Herero and Tonga peoples.

You have to admire the sense of humor of the folk in the refugee industry. Their current bright idea: to resettle part of a polygamous tribe that practices female genital mutilation in Holyoke, Massachusetts--next door to the first women’s college in America.

Even by the standards of the refugee industry – and God knows etc.--the story of the Somali Bantu is wild. They are not ethnic Somalis, the group who have just notoriously discovered Lewiston, Maine, doubling its welfare budget in two years. (At 3 percent of the Lewiston’s population, Somalis now receive 46 percent of its welfare payments). Instead, the Somali Bantu are the descendants of slaves brought to Somalia from further south as much as two hundred years ago. They remain distinct and are allegedly despised by their former masters--themselves, it should be noted, black Africans.

Bantu are said to have settled in Uganda between A.D 1000 and A.D. 1300. Some reasons are given to explain why the Bantu moved from their original homeland to come to settle in Uganda. One reason is that they might have been overpopulated and therefore some groups decided to move away in search of vacant lands on which to practice agriculture. Another reason given is that they might have moved away just in search of fertile lands or due to internal conflicts within their communities or external attacks by their neighbours.

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Somali Bantu Refugees

In the spring of 2003, the first Somali Bantu refugees will arrive in the United States to begin new lives. This group of approximately 12,000 refugees under consideration for admission to the U.S. has spent most of the past decade languishing in camps along the dangerous Somali-Kenyan border. Descendants of slaves taken from Tanzania and northern Mozambique in the late nineteenth century to the southern Somali coast, the Bantu have remained a persecuted minority in Somalia and cannot return to the homes they fled there.

For many years, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) sought a place of safe asylum where the Bantu could permanently resettle. Kenya, which struggles to meet the needs of its own population as well as the hundreds of thousands of refugees it hosts, was unable to provide permanent refuge. In 2000, the United State agreed to consider the group for resettlement in the United States.

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Oct 03 2002 Nairobi - Families of recently circumcised young Somali Bantu women are likely to be excluded from one of the largest resettlement programmes of Africans to the United States this year, a US official said on Wednesday.

The discovery that the Bantus, or ethnic black African minority community of Somalia, were rushing to circumcise their women threatens to complicate an attempt to give a better life to one of Africa's longest suffering peoples, aid workers say.

The programme involves Somali Bantus now living in exile in Kenya. In 1999 the United States, which bans female circumcision, designated them a priority group for resettlement.

"The Somali Bantus apparently understood that circumcision would be illegal in the United States and the result of this is them circumcising their girls before leaving," said US embassy spokesperson Tom Hart.

The Bantus are living reminders of the once widespread and lucrative Indian Ocean slave trade and have lived as a marginalised minority among Somalis since the 18th century.

Hart said a twin approach was planned to combat female circumcision - known in the West as female genital mutilation - among some 12 000 Somali Bantus living at a camp in northwestern Kenya.

He said a publicity campaign would be mounted in the Kakuma camp to tell Bantus of the dangers of the practice and warn them that they are jeopardising their chances for resettlement in the United States.

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NEW YORK, Nov 7 (IPS) - Refugee advocacy groups say that U.S. officials should try to educate Somali asylum-seekers about the negative health effects of female circumcision rather than threaten to block their migration to the United States.

Last month, the U.S. embassy in Kenya said that it would likely prevent refugees who had performed the procedure, known in the West as female genital mutilation (FGM), from migrating to the United States.

Aid workers in refugee camps have recently reported that Somali Bantu refugees bound for the United States had performed a large number of the procedures after learning that it is illegal in their future home.

Although they oppose the practice, groups that work with refugees say that a different approach that emphasises education can reduce the frequency of FGM.

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Who are they?

The Somali Bantus come from a rural farming region along the Juba River in Somalia. Their ancestors were from Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique, and were captured and sold as slaves into Somalia. Their slave origins, and ethnic and cultural differences from native Somalis, kept them a marginalized minority. Few found opportunities beyond subsistence farming. Discrimination and poverty prevented access to schools, land ownership, and everyday rights. The Bantus have had little formal education, low literacy and English levels, large families, almost no U.S. support system, and an almost total lack of exposure to technology and urban life. They practice traditional beliefs and primitive health care approaches. Many have been in refugee camps in Kenya for 10 years. The good news is that they are eager to work, as they have shown in the camps. They have skills in mechanics, small-scale farming, and construction. The Bantus have a strong sense of family and community, which will be helpful to them.

How will they get to the U.S.?

About 1,000 Bantus are currently in post-INS processing, with the hope that they will start arriving in the U.S. in June or July 2003. The total resettled in the U.S. will be 11,800 Bantus. Some cities will receive over 200 cases that are extended families, and members of the same clans. Metro Atlanta may receive about 300 cases. Cultural training is being completed more extensively for the Bantus, with 80 hours of training planned, including specific training for women and youth, and in literacy.

Resettlement Challenges

The Bantus have only limited exposure to transportation systems, rental property, and government services, with the exposure being mostly in the camps. Their cultural orientation includes information on work, housing, health, and education in the U.S. American resettlement agencies are preparing to use training and support that worked well with groups with similar characteristics, such as rural African refugees or the Hmong of Southeast Asia. Agencies will be focusing on high school equivalency (GED), English language training, crime awareness, rights and opportunities available to them as newcomers to America, and relations among the myriad ethnic groups in the U.S.

Housing

Bantus have had little exposure to Western housing, conveniences, food, electricity, flush toilets, telephones, and kitchen and laundry supplies. This is another area where the orientation used for other rural refugees will be helpful.

Health Care

The concept of family planning does not exist for the Bantus. Usually the women are either pregnant or breastfeeding. They practice traditional beliefs regarding healing. The use of herbs, prayers, and rituals are common in healing. Female circumcision is also common. Orientation will need to deal significantly with health care, sanitation, and social support issues relating to children and mothers. Many Bantus have low self-esteem because of their history of slavery and subjugation. They have had a prevalence of violence in their lives. Many, including children, are depressed and traumatized. Some of the refugee agencies in Atlanta have relationships with psychologists and mental health professionals who work on sliding scales. These relationships will be used to support the Bantus.