Tsumkwe West fences fall

Sources at the Omatako settlement in the Na‡Jaqna Conservancy in Tsumkwe West yesterday confirmed that illegal fences were finally being removed.

The sources said the operation started on Friday and the process was being monitored by the police as well as officers of the Ministry of Land Resettlement and the Otjozondjupa Communal Land Board.

They further confirmed that there had so far not been any resistance from illegal settlers despite their earlier refusal to budge.

“People are rolling up the fences. So far there is no tension but we do not know what might happen later,” said one source.

The High Court in August last year ordered 22 of the 35 settlers in the conservancy to remove their illegal fences and livestock within 60 days.

The court ordered the land board and ministry to forcibly remove them if they failed to leave on their own.

Nearly three months have passed since the expiry of that deadline. The holdup was caused by a Supreme Court challenge of the High Court order. However, the Supreme Court on 28 December last year notified the illegal settlers that their appeal had lapsed and that the High Court order would remain in place.

The illegal settlers had alleged in their defence that the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002 precluded the Na‡aJaqna conservancy committee from evicting people from the communal land within the conservancy.

The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), which represented the Na‡aJaqna conservancy committee, had argued that members of the !Kung traditional community had habitually and exclusively occupied the conservancy area since time immemorial and therefore had the right to claim authority over the land and to evict illegal occupiers.