San deserve their own land in communal areas: Amathila

TRADITIONAL leaders have been urged to help Government implement the San Development Programme.

“It is in our collective interest to extend a helping land to the San,” said Deputy Prime Minister Libertina Amathila when she addressed the conference of the Council of Traditional Leaders in Windhoek last week. Amathila, who travelled to the rural areas earlier this year to get first-hand information on the living conditions of San people, said she found “criminal labour exploitation” of the San.”Some San children, especially girls, are kidnapped and abducted from schools without parental knowledge, in order to perform domestic work and are later impregnated and dumped with children they cannot raise by themselves,” Amathila told the traditional leaders.She said San people needed land to settle on and abandon a nomadic lifestyle.”Once this situation is reversed, they can usher in a new era of self-reliance and sustainable livelihood for themselves,” she said.Amathila appealed to traditional leaders, as custodians of communal land, to give land to the San people who live in their areas of jurisdiction.But she warned them not to throw San people “into the wilderness”, as they have the same rights as other Namibians to live in productive areas.She applauded some traditional leaders who have already allocated land to the San, where they have now started planting crops.The Council of Traditional Leaders advises the President on the control and utilisation of communal land and other matters as may be referred to it by the Office of the President.Amathila, who travelled to the rural areas earlier this year to get first-hand information on the living conditions of San people, said she found “criminal labour exploitation” of the San.”Some San children, especially girls, are kidnapped and abducted from schools without parental knowledge, in order to perform domestic work and are later impregnated and dumped with children they cannot raise by themselves,” Amathila told the traditional leaders.She said San people needed land to settle on and abandon a nomadic lifestyle.”Once this situation is reversed, they can usher in a new era of self-reliance and sustainable livelihood for themselves,” she said.Amathila appealed to traditional leaders, as custodians of communal land, to give land to the San people who live in their areas of jurisdiction.But she warned them not to throw San people “into the wilderness”, as they have the same rights as other Namibians to live in productive areas.She applauded some traditional leaders who have already allocated land to the San, where they have now started planting crops.The Council of Traditional Leaders advises the President on the control and utilisation of communal land and other matters as may be referred to it by the Office of the President.