Swanu intensifies call for second land conference

SWANU of Namibia says the second land conference slated for November should focus on issues pertaining to land theft before and after independence, and the returning of land to those it rightfully belongs to.

The first land conference was held in 1991, a year after Namibia attained its independence. With people illegally settling in areas because of exorbitant land and housing prices secondary to the housing shortage, land and housing are big issues 26 years after independence.

In an interview with Nampa last Thursday, Swanu president and member of parliament, Usutuaije Maamberua said the conference should focus on the core issues of ancestral land, restitution, resettlement land, the landhold system, sacred land and the issue of the diaspora.

Maamberua said restitution has to be on the agenda of the conference for measures to be put in place and for land lost during the colonial regime to be returned so the dignity and rights of people can be restored.

He suggested that the conference develop methods of how affected communities will be given back what they had lost, adding the government’s resettlement programme is a “political tool creating havoc in the country.”

“The resettlement programme is skewed and serves the bourgeoisie. It is patronising and does not benefit the poorest of the poor.”

The party’s leader noted that the programme should first be done in consultation with traditional leaders for the sake of transparency; and said the conference should ensure that people are resettled on their ancestral land, and not where they do not belong.

He also proposed that all sacred places in Namibia should be owned by the state.

This, according to him, will ensure public access to these places as opposed to the current situation where the owners deny access to such land.

The first land conference deliberated on issues of foreign acquisition of Namibian land. It then resolved that foreigners should not be allowed to buy land in Namibia.

Maamberua said a lot of issues were not raised during the 1991 land conference because people had given government the benefit of the doubt and did not want to demand too much since it was the first conference.

“They however later realised that government is not serious and has already messed up with the question of land,” he stated.

– Nampa