- So, the Namibians are now following in the path set by
Robert Mugabe. He's shown all these other black Governments they way...
I've said before that the "willing buyer willing seller" idea
does not work. After a time, they run out of money and then they just steal
the land anyway. The same will happen in South Africa. It is such a waste
sucking up to these black governments. They're all out to nail us when
the time is right. -Jan
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- News24.com
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- WINDHOEK - An umbrella group
for Namibian commercial farmers, the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU),
says the announcement that farm expropriations will take place in the country
has sent has sent shock waves through its agricultural community.
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- "It is shocking, just like death which is always
inevitable but people get shocked, frustrated and disorientated when it
occurs in a family. It is the same (as) this news: it causes sorrow and
disturbances in the farming community," said the union's president,
Jan de Wet.
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- On Wednesday last week, Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab
said on state television that a number of white-owned farms would be expropriated
to accelerate the process of land reform.
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- This was because the existing policy of "willing
seller, willing buyer" was not delivering results.
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- "The process has become too slow because of arbitrarily
inflated land prices and unavailability of productive land," observed
Gurirab.
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- Namibia is saddled with racial imbalances in land ownership
that date back to the colonial era.
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- Fourteen years after independence, more than 240,000
people are still in need of land. The Namibian Parliament last year passed
a land reform act allowing government to acquire properties in the public
interest, with the payment of just compensation.
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- Although the Prime Minister did not say which land would
be expropriated, it is believed that farms belonging to absentee landlords
are likely targets.
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- De Wet called on the government to make clear the criteria
that would be used to select properties, as the current situation was creating
uncertainty that could spill into unrest.
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- "The situation also affects the surety of the farms,
because financial institutions now regard them as risky investments, and
farmers might in future have to struggle to get loans from banks. The question
is: are we going the Zimbabwe way?"
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- Discontent over land ownership in Namibia has been stirred
up in recent months by the dismissal of certain farm workers who have stayed
on the properties concerned for decades.
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- The layoffs have led to clashes between farm owners and
unions, and angered the government.
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- The Secretary-General of the Namibia Farm Workers Union,
Alfred Angula, welcomed the government's announcement - and highlighted
the need for further reforms in the farming sector.
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- "Farmers need to realise that they do not pay pension
or any other compensation to their workers who sometimes work on such farms
for decades, and when they become old they want to evict them and make
it the government's problem," he said.
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- Late last year, Angula's union called for farm occupations
in those areas where the evictions were taking place.
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- http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1491248,00.html
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