Namibia’s Ruling Elite should not dismiss the fatal shooting of a village headman in the Oshikoto region and the critical wounding of another, who is also a top government official, as an anomaly unrelated to nationwide land management problems.
Onelago village headman Sem Nepando, who is also a Windhoek-based government tax official, died at the scene when he was shot during a dispute over the fencing off of land.
Iikokola village headman I-Ben Nashandi, who is also an executive director, the rank of the most senior government bureaucrats, survived three bullets after undergoing emergency surgery.
Sinskus Johannes, a subject at Nashandi’s village, is on trial for the murderous shooting and related violence that took place on 2 January.
It seems unclear whether any legal action was taken against Johannes for the apparent illegal fencing off of the land the two headmen tried to reverse.
Illegal land occupation has become common in independent Namibia. The perpetrators are mainly the ruling elite and the rich, who often appropriate communal land with the help of tribal authorities.
The less rich or connected a person is, the lower the probability of getting large portions of communal farmland.
The land dispute involving Nashandi, Nepando and Johannes highlights the murky legal management of government land that is left to traditional authorities to administer.
Apart from managing communal land as if it were the property of monarchs, tribal leaders use the land to raise money, in the process promoting profiteering by a few in which the rich get richer – even when they don’t live in those areas.
It is not only in the typical communal lands situated north of the redline where illegal land occupation activities take place.
Across Namibia, land reform policies enacted since independence have encouraged the enrichment of those connected to ruling politicians, senior bureaucrats and the rich to help themselves to huge tracts of land at the expense of the poor, pushing the less privileged further outside the orbit of decent living.
Since independence 36 years ago, thousands of farms have been acquired by new owners, mostly or essentially for free, both in so-called commercial areas and areas called ‘communal’.
The new owners are largely financially well-endowed individuals, and it was through their connections that most farms were acquired.
Arguably, most livestock and water sources in communal areas do not belong to people who live in communal areas; the majority are well-paid people working in towns.
It is urgent that the very purpose of land is revisited.
Should land be for economic production to benefit the country, for the sustenance of the poor, to enrich the wealthy, or should it be a reservoir of informal capital for village residents as well as formal capital for the elite?
As a weekend resort, should land be for recreation and a source of status, at least for those who can afford weekends away?
These are important issues.
Current policy and law prohibit the buying and selling of land, yet a vibrant market is now in place in communal Namibia, with many people profiting very handsomely.
Another matter to be considered is what communal land should be.
Should it be communal for all, or just for some, especially those who live there permanently and for whom it is the main source of sustenance?
The use of the term ‘previously disadvantaged’ in the allocation of resources has surely not worked, considering that poverty is spreading while a handful of black, white and brown Namibians have gotten filthy rich.
During the liberation struggle, Swapo was strongly against tribal authorities, but after independence quickly embraced them to buy votes while being shielded from delivering the prosperity it promised the majority of Namibians.
It is time to redesign land management by doing away with the different systems – whether it is socalled Basterlands or colonial landownership for whites – and to forever banish the Bantustan, which has continued in the form of the ever-growing ‘traditional authority’.
One Namibia, one land management system.
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