For the Wieses, Ongombo is history

WEST THE Wiese family’s 101-year ownership of the farm Ongombo West officially ended yesterday when they loaded their last belongings, including their white poodle and the farm cat, in a maroon minibus before moving to Windhoek.

“No more Christmas at Ongombo. Not even family burials.I will be cremated,” Hilde Wiese told The Namibian as she entered a room containing only a telephone, a table, three plastic chairs and a radio.The workers helped to load a 60-year-old plant container made by her father into the minibus.Her son, Andreas, was taking a Government delegation around the farm for a formal handover.Outside the house, under a huge jacaranda tree at least 30 years older than her, smoke rose from an old oil drum used to burn some of the belongings that the family was unable to auction off last month.Hilde Wiese is bitter because she will leave behind decades of the family’s history, including a graveyard where her parents, grandparents, sister, uncle and a cousin are buried.In the past week, the Wiese family have covered the graves with cement so that the headstones cannot be removed easily.Mrs Wiese is taking three employees with her to her new home in the city.Another three will move to a nearby farm with Andreas.He is going there to manage the farm for someone else.However, three other employees will remain on Ongombo.One of them, Elias //Hoeb, a father of nine who has worked on the farm for the last 21 years and who got a severance package of N$4 900 yesterday, said he has no other place to go.”The Government said we must just remain here.They asked whether we want to be resettled here and we have indicated so.We expect them to come back once everything is settled with the Wieses.”Showing an envelope full of money to The Namibian, //Hoeb said: “It will go like wind.”He said the money was only enough to last him a few months, as he has school fees to pay and a family to maintain, but he hopes that Government will allow them to start planting vegetables to make ends meet.He also has 25 goats on another farm.At least //Hoeb and Erik !Ganeb got money.Wilfred Sethie //Hoebeb, Ben !Ganeb and Immanuel //Hoebeb, three of the six workers at the centre of a labour dispute that ended in the expropriation of the farm by Government, said they got nothing.The Wiese family blame Nafwu for the loss of the farm and its flower-production business.Ongombo West exported around 150 000 flowers a year, and the Wiese family was in the process of increasing the exports to 750 000 flowers annually, when the labour dispute resulted in the sacking, eviction and re-appointment of six workers.”As you can see, people have started moving onto the farm.I wonder whether the Government will now evict them and will it be right to do that when I was wrong?” Mrs Wiese asked.Wilfred Sethie //Hoebeb said the Wiese family had nothing to do with their stay on the farm.”They fired us from their business but where do we go from here? I grew up here,” he said.He said the last couple of months were full of “suffering”, as, according to //Hoeb, he had to take care of the fired group.Ongombo West was expropriated in September and the owners were paid N$3,7 million – more than N$5 million short of what Hilde Wiese had wanted.The reason: the Wieses dismissed six farmworkers in a dispute that started with the killing of a goose and a goat, snowballed and became political.Not even family burials.I will be cremated,” Hilde Wiese told The Namibian as she entered a room containing only a telephone, a table, three plastic chairs and a radio.The workers helped to load a 60-year-old plant container made by her father into the minibus.Her son, Andreas, was taking a Government delegation around the farm for a formal handover.Outside the house, under a huge jacaranda tree at least 30 years older than her, smoke rose from an old oil drum used to burn some of the belongings that the family was unable to auction off last month.Hilde Wiese is bitter because she will leave behind decades of the family’s history, including a graveyard where her parents, grandparents, sister, uncle and a cousin are buried.In the past week, the Wiese family have covered the graves with cement so that the headstones cannot be removed easily.Mrs Wiese is taking three employees with her to her new home in the city.Another three will move to a nearby farm with Andreas.He is going there to manage the farm for someone else.However, three other employees will remain on Ongombo.One of them, Elias //Hoeb, a father of nine who has worked on the farm for the last 21 years and who got a severance package of N$4 900 yesterday, said he has no other place to go.”The Government said we must just remain here.They asked whether we want to be resettled here and we have indicated so.We expect them to come back once everything is settled with the Wieses.”Showing an envelope full of money to The Namibian, //Hoeb said: “It will go like wind.”He said the money was only enough to last him a few months, as he has school fees to pay and a family to maintain, but he hopes that Government will allow them to start planting vegetables to make ends meet.He also has 25 goats on another farm.At least //Hoeb and Erik !Ganeb got money.Wilfred Sethie //Hoebeb, Ben !Ganeb and Immanuel //Hoebeb, three of the six workers at the centre of a labour dispute that ended in the expropriation of the farm by Government, said they got nothing.The Wiese family blame Nafwu for the loss of the farm and its flower-production business.Ongombo West exported around 150 000 flowers a year, and the Wiese family was in the process of increasing the exports to 750 000 flowers annually, when the labour dispute resulted in the sacking, eviction and re-appointment of six workers.”As you can see, people have started moving onto the farm.I wonder whether the Government will now evict them and will it be right to do that when I was wrong?” Mrs Wiese asked.Wilfred Sethie //Hoebeb said the Wiese family had nothing to do with their stay on the farm.”They fired us from their business but where do we go from here? I grew up here,” he said.He said the last couple of months were full of “suffering”, as, according to //Hoeb, he had to take care of the fired group.Ongombo West was expropriated in September and the owners were paid N$3,7 million – more than N$5 million short of what Hilde Wiese had wanted.The reason: the Wieses dismissed six farmworkers in a dispute that started with the killing of a goose and a goat, snowballed and became political.