Swanu of Namibia would like to react to the media release by the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement that was published in New Era on Thursday, 24 May. Swanu’s point of departure regarding this matter is that of defining what we mean by land and why we say Give The Land Back To The People. When reference is made to land, many Namibians, including the Ministry, tend to connote and equate land to soil and grass. For us, land includes all natural resources beneath and above the earth and sea that belong to the State. Therefore, we are not referring to ‘excessive tracts of land’ as referred to by the Ministry. The ministry pretentiously states that ‘We are addressing the unequal distribution of wealth and resources’. Fine, perhaps wealth and resources in the understanding of Swanu! But land reform and resettlement cannot address these. Land reform by nature and definition is evolutionary. This perhaps understandably causes the cold shivers down the spine of the Ministry at hearing the word ‘revolution’. The Ministry says, ‘The Land Reform Programme calls for patience to deal with land reform in any context otherwise it can degenerate into a revolution and we all know the undesired consequences of revolutions …’. Revolution should be understood in the following definition: ‘radical alteration of a particular condition, state of affairs’ from the Oxford Shorter English Dictionary. The Ministry, we hope, is not oblivious to the examples provided by the Green Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and similar radical transformations. However, if the Ministry is afraid of the consequences of revolutions – perhaps including independence – Swanu, as the vanguard of the Namibia liberation, being the first political organisation and being the carrier of the Revolutionary Torch is not afraid of any revolution whatsoever. We do, however, abhor anarchy, myopic approaches to fundamental issues, cosmetic changes and reforms. All these are exemplified by the so-called expropriation of Ongombo West and a few others. Comrade Tsheehama, to give meaning to the mandate of the Ministry against the background of our liberation struggle, let us rather talk of revolutionary transformation to land and resettlement. Let us rather talk of the dispossessed masses rather than the previously disadvantaged. The masses in the South have been dispossessed of nearly everything, and they remain so 17 years after independence, yet wealth and resources are in abundance in that part of Namibia. The neo-colonialist arrangement between our Government and De Beers (Namdeb) will never address the unequal distribution of wealth for the people in the South nor will the exploitation of our marine resources by the cohort arrangement between local black bourgeois (so-called BEE) and some Spanish imperialists entrepreneurs and others. Cde Tsheehama, colonization in Namibia and elsewhere has had historical, political, economic social, and ecological aspects. The ecological implication is the least studied and understood. Take the North (formerly Ovamboland); the ecological devastation as evidenced by deforestation, population pressure, and so on, can certainly not be addressed by means of the land reform programme as envisaged by the Ministry. In this context, the Ministry needs to answer a fundamental question arising from the experience of land reform and resettlement – which is whether this process has contributed to a genuine social and economic development of the North or whether it has served merely as an escape valve for social pressures and political expediency. By its own admission the Ministry says: … “our Government is trying to … address the land question … and is still trying to find an acceptable formula in this rather complex exercise …’ Swanu wonders whether the current process of land reform and resettlement does not attempt to create new, more equitable agrarian situations, but merely recreates existing unequal distribution patterns in new areas. Swanu would therefore want to see agrarian transformation (please note, not even agrarian reform – we are not reformists), agricultural subsidies and enhanced ploughing services restructured and re-introduced with heavy substantive government participation, enhanced reforestation programmes including substantive investments in alternative sources of energy, all within the broader context of development transformation endeavours for the North and elsewhere. Swanu would like to suggest that land transformation for purposes of equitable distribution of wealth and resources, whether under the auspices of the Ministry or elsewhere, but preferably under Swanu’s own future Ministry of Land Transformation for Equity, the process should be revolutionary in nature, tangible and visible results should be evident within a period of less than ten years. Since there are noticeable aberrations from the socialist underpinnings regarding land transformation as then understood by Swanu and Swapo, an urgent Second Land Consultative Conference must be convened. If constitutional provisions are a hindrance to this noble task, then it must be amended, because the livelihood and interest of our people are paramount and are the raison d’etre for the existence of any government. If the constitution can be amended to allow a third term for one person, why can’t it be amended in the interests of the masses? We are urging the Ministry to refrain from the reformist approaches when it comes to the land question, but to take a revolutionary approach. Indeed, since there are many have-nots and very few haves, the academics and theorists are correct in reminding us that the dispossessed Namibians deserve more access to land than the others. Uateza Kazapua SWANU Secretary General