EDITORIAL: Enough with red line promises

The northern veterinary cordon fence, otherwise known as the red line, is being deliberately used not only as a purported disease-control mechanism but as a demarcation for economic sabotage of people whose only sin is their demographic location.For 31 years, people in the northern communal areas have waited on their government to resolve this economic and social exclusion, but the liberators have instead produced fed Namibians with a cocktail of excuses about why those residing north of that fence should remain far away from opportunities that the remainder of the country enjoys with regards to meat products.The arguments that removing the fence will rob the country of billions of dollars only make sense to those who benefit directly from such profits. A person in Onalunike (in the Oshikoto Region), Sikaro Sompo (Kavango West) or Bukalo (Zambezi) couldn’t give a hoot if a system that doesn’t benefit them collapsed.For 31 years, government has pleaded for time to work on an inclusive solution for the red line. We have a government which – for three decades – has been throwing away and burning to ash people’s meat, thereby threatening individual families’ food security and the general livelihood of their children.What concerns us the most is not only such degrading acts by a supposed government of the people, but the sheer lack of appetite and political will to find a solution to taking food out of children’s mouths.

EDITORIAL: Enough with red line promises

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-17

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EDITORIAL: Enough with red line promises

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-17

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