Constitution paper about the Bostwana The history of Botswana covers a gap between the histories of neighboring South Africa and Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, and Zambia. In prehistoric and very recent times the Kalahari thirst lands of Botswana have been central in the historical geography of the region, as the intermediate territory between the savannas of the north and east and the steppes of the south and west. The Batswana denote all citizens of Botswana, refers to the country's major ethnic group called the "Tswana" in South Africa. Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule. Between the 1880s and its independence in the 1960s, however, Botswana was a poor and peripheral British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. The country is named after its dominant ethnic group, the Tswana or Batswana Bechuana' in older variant orthography, and the national languageis called Setswana aka 'Sechuana' ( ). Since the later 1960s Botswana has gained in international stature as a peaceful and increasingly prosperous democratic state. It has had one of the fastest growing economies in the world, rising from one of the poorest to lower-middle income level. This new prosperity has been based on the mining of diamonds and other minerals, which have built up state revenues, and on the sale of beef to Europe and the world market. There has been extensive development of educational and health facilities, in villages and traditional rural towns as well as in rapidly growing new towns. But there has also been an increasing gap between classes of new rich and new poor. {draw:a} Festus Gontebanye Mogae born 21 August 1939 was President of Botswana from 1998 to 2008. He succeeded Quett Masire as President in 1998 and was reelected in October 2004. After ten years in office, he stepped down in 2008 and was succeeded by Ian Khama. He is a native Setswana language speaker, of the Bamangwato people. Mogae studied economics in the United...