Namibia to emulate Zim on land
President Hage Geingob says he went to Zimbabwe last week to get advice on land reform.
President Hage Geingob says he used his visit to Zimbabwe last week to get advice on how to tackle the land issue.
Geingob, who was on a two-day state visit to Zimbabwe, was quoted as saying that he was tasked with the enormous task of delivering land and prosperity to the Namibian people.
“I have to deliver the land, prosperity, it is a tall order. So, I came here to get advice because indeed I said this (President Robert Mugabe) is my mentor,” the Herald quoted Geingob as saying.
Zimbabwe embarked on an agrarian land reform programme in 2000, with the government taking white-owned farms and reassigning them to black Zimbabweans without land.
Although this radical approach was hailed in some quarters, it was heavily criticised, with the Zimbabwean authorities accused of chasing white farmers away. The country's devastating economic collapse has also been attributed to the failure of the land reform programme.
“We cannot hide from this issue. We can't hide away from it. We can't hide away from the fact that some people are still left out after 27 years of independence. In my thesis a long time ago, I said in Zimbabwe my brothers there had a Cesarean section to deliver a baby. (A) Cesarean section could be very painful, but they used that and I was saying when the pain stops you will deliver a healthy baby.”
Back home the Geingob administration is under pressure to deliver on its promises of land. A second land conference will be held in September to discuss the issue.
Geingob had already warned during the Independence Day celebrations in Rundu this year that the government would consider expropriating land with fair compensation as outlined in the constitution.
“This means we need to refer back to our constitution which allows for the expropriation of land with fair compensation and also look at foreign ownership of land, especially absentee land owners,” he was quoted as saying in March.
At a state banquet dinner in Harare, Geingob praised Mugabe as “a man of reconciliation” for pardoning former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith after independence, despite having been imprisoned for ten years.
“He reconciled with General (Peter) Walls,” he said.
“Ian Smith's farm was not taken. He went on his own. So, when I talk of reconciliation I put it into context, that the first reconciliatory (gesture) coming from an ugly war was Comrade Mugabe. He tolerated for ten years the Lancaster House Agreement. He was kind to wait because he knew that there were two countries under colonialism, Namibia and South Africa.”
-Additional reporting by Herald
STAFF REPORTER
Geingob, who was on a two-day state visit to Zimbabwe, was quoted as saying that he was tasked with the enormous task of delivering land and prosperity to the Namibian people.
“I have to deliver the land, prosperity, it is a tall order. So, I came here to get advice because indeed I said this (President Robert Mugabe) is my mentor,” the Herald quoted Geingob as saying.
Zimbabwe embarked on an agrarian land reform programme in 2000, with the government taking white-owned farms and reassigning them to black Zimbabweans without land.
Although this radical approach was hailed in some quarters, it was heavily criticised, with the Zimbabwean authorities accused of chasing white farmers away. The country's devastating economic collapse has also been attributed to the failure of the land reform programme.
“We cannot hide from this issue. We can't hide away from it. We can't hide away from the fact that some people are still left out after 27 years of independence. In my thesis a long time ago, I said in Zimbabwe my brothers there had a Cesarean section to deliver a baby. (A) Cesarean section could be very painful, but they used that and I was saying when the pain stops you will deliver a healthy baby.”
Back home the Geingob administration is under pressure to deliver on its promises of land. A second land conference will be held in September to discuss the issue.
Geingob had already warned during the Independence Day celebrations in Rundu this year that the government would consider expropriating land with fair compensation as outlined in the constitution.
“This means we need to refer back to our constitution which allows for the expropriation of land with fair compensation and also look at foreign ownership of land, especially absentee land owners,” he was quoted as saying in March.
At a state banquet dinner in Harare, Geingob praised Mugabe as “a man of reconciliation” for pardoning former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith after independence, despite having been imprisoned for ten years.
“He reconciled with General (Peter) Walls,” he said.
“Ian Smith's farm was not taken. He went on his own. So, when I talk of reconciliation I put it into context, that the first reconciliatory (gesture) coming from an ugly war was Comrade Mugabe. He tolerated for ten years the Lancaster House Agreement. He was kind to wait because he knew that there were two countries under colonialism, Namibia and South Africa.”
-Additional reporting by Herald
STAFF REPORTER
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