Pay Aandonga for Etosha - Swartbooi

Landless People's Movement (LPM) leader and former deputy lands minister, Bernadus Swartbooi, says government should compensate indigenous tribes in instances were land was forcefully taken by the colonial and apartheid regimes, but is now under state control.The areas he specifically mentioned were the Etosha National Park and other lucrative tourism hubs now controlled by the state-owned Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR).When asked specifically how government should deal with land that is now regarded as state property, but was taken from communities during colonialism, Swartbooi said “major unfairness” had been perpetrated.“When the Germans came they expropriated land and they did not compensate. When South Africa came, they took that land and said 'this land now belongs to the crown'. This government (Swapo) now said such land now belongs to the state. “Now this government, if it takes on the sins of previous governments, must redeem itself by paying back communities in financial terms for land they have taken. “If this government insists that Etosha is state land then they must pay compensation to those communities from whom land was taken during colonialism. “If NWR operates state land we must ask how was Etosha acquired historically by the Germans or the Afrikaner regime. If they do not want (joint) shareholdership then the Aandonga must be paid; the Hai//om must be paid compensation because it is only fair that if you take someone's land you must pay for it, it is a constitutional provision. “So this government sits on illegally acquired land, which it calls state land. Black people are owed money. Just like they are compensating for land that they are buying from white people, so must they compensate black people, unless they are saying let us work on terms,” Swartbooi said.He was reacting to President Hage Geingob's recent announcement that ancestral land restitution will be included in the discussions that will take place at the country's second national land conference, slated for the first week in October.Swartbooi also said the LPM is working hard to deal with possible tensions between tribes - especially the Damara and Ovaherero – over overlapping or “shared heritage” claims.Asked what concrete plans and solutions LPM will come up, Swartbooi said: “What we have said from a strategic point of view already is that the very fact that Geingob has announced that it will be on the agenda means government has conceded that ancestral land must be recognised. “The conference will not be aimed at discussing whether or not ancestral land must be discussed, but it will merely agree on modalities as to how to achieve the implementation of the return of ancestral land.” Asked how the LPM is going to deal with the possible conflict where different tribes claim to have lived in the same areas, Swartbooi said it will continue with its strategic engagement with stakeholders, in order to defuse this.“Last year we had our conference and we were planning a subsequent workshop to sharpen our approach to the issue. What we have done so far and continue to do is to begin to meet strategic stakeholders to work on a common position paper, so that we do not have a clash going into the conference, in particular in terms of traditional authorities who are saying their land their starts and ends at a particular point and where we will have conceptual problems of overlapping claims. “We have put together some traditional groups that may contest each other to start talking and they have started talking. I do not want to mention names now. We have in particular started to work to have the Ovaherero and the Damara people start talking. “We have done away with certain vocabulary of 'overlapping claims' but instead (we call it) shared areas or shared territories or shared heritage, so the ancestral land issue does not become an argument about whose land this was or whose land it is not. We are pushing for people to recognise that communities lived together and boundaries at certain fringes could overlap, as there was great interbreeding,” Swartbooi said. He added the LPM is speaking to traditional leaders and technical committees and also holding outreaches to churches “and at the same time we will have an outreach to the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC)”. “One of the key institutions that we will also soon start to talk to is Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR), because it manages - under the guise of state land - traditional areas of certain communities. If you look at how it is structured now, eastern pockets is the Ondonga area, the southern and western area is the Hai//om area, northern fringes are areas that belong to the south Omusati and the northwest pockets is often the Ovahimba. “Our thinking is that we will be talking to NWR management to say part of resolution of this issue is to give actual land - territorial space in a shared way to certain communities that are today landless, for instance the San. “But also that there is a fundamental process that NWR is reformed so that it is longer 100 % owned by the state. But that certain lodges in certain areas are managed by NWR but co-owned by traditional authorities, by those communities through trusts, so there is a profit sharing methodology worked out,” the LPM leader, who was fired from Geingob cabinet after a public spat with his then senior in the lands ministry, Utoni Nujoma, said.He added that in the discussion around ancestral land, there were certain non-negotiable issues. Non-negotiable issues“In the discussion, of course, there are non-negotiable issues to the approach of ancestral land. A non-negotiable is space - a piece of land that is of such great historical, cultural and heritage value that it has to be brought under the direct control of traditional authorities, for instance Hoornkranz. “The first attack was at Hoornkranz. (12 April 1893 the Germans launched a full-scale attack against the Witbooi settlement at Hoornkranz). There were areas of the Ovaherero where there are graves such as at Shark Island. “Look at the Waterberg Plateau; you cannot talk of Ovaherero history and ignore this area. Areas where key battles took place; that if you do not buy the whole farm that you buy the specific demarcated area so that your events are held there so that you have the process of return to certain spaces to communities,” Swartbooi added.JEMIMA BEUKES

Pay Aandonga for Etosha - Swartbooi

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Namibian Sun 2025-10-15

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Pay Aandonga for Etosha - Swartbooi

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Namibian Sun 2025-10-15

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