Namibia keeping calm on land issue

TEN years after independence the Namibian government says it will stick to its policy of "willing seller, willing buyer" to achieve a long-term, equable redistribution of land.

Around 5000 commercial farmers, most of them white, occupy large tracts of arable land in Namibia -- land which hardliners say was stolen by the colonial authorities and should therefore be taken back without compensation.

Following the violent invasion of white farms in Zimbabwe earlier this year, the debate on land in Namibia gained new impetus, with some politicians arguing in parliament that there was no need to "buy back land that was always ours".

For years Herero paramount chief Kuaima Riruako has been waging an as yet unsuccessful battle to claim reparations from the German government for his people, 60000 of whom perished during the Herero wars at the beginning of the 1900s.

"The rest of us were deprived of land that we traditionally owned and grazed our cattle on," DTA leader and member of the Herero tribe Katuutire Kaura says.

But neither the Namibian nor the German government is prepared to mete out land according to tribal claims and preferences. Germany has repeatedly said it is doing its part in fulfilling its historical obligation as former colonial power by being the biggest single donor of development aid to Namibia.

And the Namibian government, while realising it may be sitting on a "time bomb ready to explode" as opposition politician Ignatius Shixwameni put it in parliament, is as yet not prepared to bow to pressure from hardliners calling for a land grab.

In the wake of the invasion of farms in Zimbabwe earlier this year, some Namibian farmers received written threats by unknown citizens to evacuate their farms "or else".

This had farmers worried, but government has tried to allay fears of violent retribution against landowners.

"Our saving grace is that we have a small population and a big country," finance minister Nangolo Mbumba said in Johannesburg this week, reiterating comments made by President Sam Nujoma earlier this year when asked whether he would follow his close friend and ally Robert Mugabe's policy.

"We have lots of land for the landless. We just need to develop it," Mbumba added, indicating that for the country's 1,7 million people there was enough land to go around.

Commercial agriculture, mainly livestock farming, forms one of the mainstays of the Namibian economy together with mining, fishing and tourism.

"We need the productive farmers. Nobody will take land from those contributing to the national income," Ponhele ya Frans, former unionist and Swapo parliamentarian, said earlier this year.

But he is in favour of the expropriation where land is not adequately utilised.

"We have many absentee landlords, who come once a year to have a holiday on their farm.

''That is not good enough," he said.

Currently parliament is considering the introduction of a land tax, which is to bring much-needed revenue to the national coffers, in particular the fund set up for land acquisition and resettlement, on the one hand, and ensure that land, is productively utilised.

Regarding the development of land, the ministry of lands has now commissioned studies to look at how the communal areas can be farmed effectively or used for tourism pur-poses.

Especially in the populous northern regions, where 60 percent of the country's population live, communal land has either been sapped owing to ineffective farming practices and overpopulation, or it has remained under utilised owing to a lack of infrastructure, training and finance.

To try and find a lasting solution to the emotive issue of land, prime minister Hage Geingob, currently on a visit to Europe, is to discuss land reform with his partners in the European Union in the hope of eliciting support and possibly financial aid for the exercise.

According to Geingob, Germany has already indicated that it may be prepared to support the land reform and resettlement exercise financially. -- Sapa-DPA