By Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK – President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who had earlier warned of the possibility of a land revolution in the country, says young black people have started grabbing land in Namibia because they feel discriminated against.
He made the remark at the launch of Namibia’s First National Human Rights Action Plan in Windhoek on Tuesday.
It was the first time the President publicly made reference to land grabs since the controversial clearing of land by young ruling party activists Job Amupanda, George Kambala and Dimbulukeni Nauyoma.
The three, who had cleared land in the posh suburb of Kleine Kuppe in a gesture of demonstration against the way the City of Windhoek has allegedly been dishing out land to well-connected individuals in recent months, have since been suspended from any Swapo activities.
“Our people feel discriminated against not having land, because land is owned by the children of those who colonised us as Namibians during the apartheid system and they don’t want to sell it to the government,” Pohamba said this week.
His remarks echo those he made during an interview with Al-Jazeera TV news network in 2012 when he expressed fear that if the land issue continued to drag on, and in the process continue to disadvantage the landless masses, the country could face a revolution.
At the time Pohamba said: “Inequality exists … people are not happy and when you talk about people not being happy what do you expect? They can react. And when they react, then those who have the land will not have the land, people will take over the land.”
When speaking at his farewell function at the lands ministry in March 2005, Pohamba had also warned that the land question could trigger a revolution.
The President urged white farmers who owned large tracts of land to willingly sell some of it to government in order to house the landless black masses, whose patience he said was wearing thin.
“We have a fear in the Swapo leadership that if we do not do something, there could be a revolution,” Pohamba said to his former staff at the ministry.
“The ‘have-nots’ could stand up and say ‘enough is enough’.”
Policy analysts say one of the sources of the current discontent over land, especially by the youth, was the failure by the 1991 land conference to discuss urban land. The conference only dealt with issues of farm land.
Government has been working hard when it comes to its land acquisition programme, having spent N$853 million since independence to acquire 2.5 million hectares of land.
Figures from the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement indicate that from now to 2020 government still needs to acquire another 2.5 million hectares to meet its target of 5 million hectares.
So far 5008 families have been resettled on the acquired farm land.
Pohamba noted on Tuesday that founding president Sam Nujoma, before independence in 1990, decided not to retaliate against the oppressors and that reconciliation was the best way forward.
“The basis of the long and bitter struggle when precious lives of Namibian people were sacrificed was for our independence and for land, and not only to eat around the same table,” he said.
Pohamba further posed a question to the nation, asking: “Why can we not share the land in our country of birth?”
He also called on defenders of human rights to consider the issue of land as a serious human rights matter.
The President then (on Tuesday) officially launched the National Human Rights Action Plan in the presence of Ombudsperson John Walters, Chairperson of the Uganda Human Rights Commission Med Kaggwa, and the United Nations Resident Coordinator Musinga Bandora.
The action plan is built on key findings of the baseline study on human rights in Namibia, and provides a comprehensive framework for multi-stakeholder engagement on human rights.
In addition, the plan has defined an effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation framework.
Human Rights Day is commemorated globally on December 10 each year, the date on which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. – Additional reporting by Nampa