- WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Namibia's
black communal farmers have urged President Sam Nujoma's government to
speed up land reform to avoid Zimbabwe-style farm invasions.
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- Namibia National Farmers Union (NNFU) leader Pintile
Davids said the government's willing-seller-willing-buyer policy had failed
to address the land imbalance in Namibia because white commercial farmers
were unwilling to sell.
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- "Comrade President, we must shift gears now for
the better, we need to take the bull by its horns. We need your direct
intervention now," Davids told a farmers' meeting attended by Nujoma
on Thursday night.
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- Davids warned that the slow pace of land reform could
produce another Zimbabwe, where hundreds of white-owned farms have been
seized by self-styled liberation war veterans with the support of President
Robert Mugabe's government.
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- "We would like to extend a word of caution to our
countrymen. Do not push us too far ... we are capable of doing anything,"
Davids said.
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- "The communal farmers of this country are trapped
in a vicious cycle of poverty that is increasingly frustrating. Frustration
can fuel anger," he added.
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- Namibia has suffered no farm invasions, but only about
35 000 Namibians have been resettled on commercial farmland since independence
from South Africa in 1990.
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- Some 243 000 communal farmers - subsistence farmers who
till small plots of land - are still waiting for land
-
- According to government statistics, about 30.5 million
hectares is owned by white farmers and only 2.2 million hectares by black
farmers.
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- Nujoma noted the concerns of the communal farmers, but
he said the willing-seller, willing-buyer policy "is the most viable
and practical policy option at present".
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- Nujoma said it was the commercial farmers' duty to ensure
that they gave their full support to government initiatives aimed at improving
the living conditions of those who were disadvantaged before independence.
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- Indigenous Namibian tribal groups, such as the Hereros
and Namas, lost almost their entire arable land during the 1904-07 colonial
war with Germany. Namibia, formerly South West Africa, became a South African
protectorate when Germany lost World War One.
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