When the youth of Namibia mobilized themselves and set the deadline of 31 July 2015 as a day for do or die to obtain land, it was none other than Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Namoloh, together with the Inspector General of the Namibian Police, Sebatian Ndeutunga, who vowed to rein in the would-be protesters.
They were determined to prevent young Namibians from accessing land. Now it has emerged the two have gotten land enough to house 45 households in Kavango.
It does not end there; they have fenced off the land, illegally so. And it gets worse; they have no thread of compassion towards the 45 households their clear-as-daylight greed has affected.
Just to refresh your minds, this is the very region that is the poorest in the country. We all know that land is a primary means of livelihood for people in rural areas. Just for the Namoloh and Ndeitunga families – that is two families or households – the poverty of these 45 household has been surely exacerbated. How do they peacefully sleep at night?
As if it is not bad enough these two generals, who have land in their regions of origin, have taken land that is ancestrally not theirs.
They dared all because they “fought for this country” and they sacrificed their lives. This implies that according to these generals, the people of Kavango have not sacrificed anything during the liberation struggle to be entitled to their own land.
This also implies that all land allocations to these rich elites is a payback for the “unquantifiable” sacrifices they made during the liberation struggle.
This is beyond insulting the patience of the people of Kavango who do not have land.
How about the sacrifices of the late Hompas Sitentu Mpasi, Commander Kapoko, Ambrosius Haingura, Kamunima, Jaako Kangayi, the fearless PLAN fighter Mundiro gwaAfrica and the likes?
We are aware that high-ranking officials from all over Namibia own land in Kavango. True, every Namibian has a right to settle anywhere in Namibia but it is suspect that Kavango has been the prime target of these officials.
How did these rich senior government officials get communal land and fence it off? Why can the fences not be taken down like it is done against Vasigona (Ovafyoona)? How much did they pay to obtain this land?
Muzokumwe Volunteer Organization condemns the myopic remarks of Namoloh and therefore demand an unconditional apology from him and Ndeitunga to the Namibian nation.
We request the Kavango Communal Land Board, in conjunction with the police, to remove all illegal fences erected by the elites in accordance with Section 44 of the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002.
In the same vein, we respectfully request our traditional leaders to refund whatever these arrogant national leaders have paid so that the land can revert back to the poor villagers whose livelihoods are threatened by this ill consideration.
We hope the eyes of the traditional leaders in Kavango are slowly opening. We beg you, our elders not to open doors to greedy elites as has become the norm in recent years.
Muzokumwe Volunteer Organization will seek practical interventions to restore the dignity of the people on issues of concern to the livelihood and growth of affected members of our communities.
Paulus Mbangu
Muzokumwe Volunteer
Organization Chairperson