•  December 2000February 2001 Local News Headlines

Friday, March 2, 2001 - Web posted at 9:12:40 AM GMT

Hereros, Himba challenge Govt in court
WERNER MENGES

HUNDREDS of members of the Herero and Himba communities crammed into the High Court in Windhoek yesterday to hear lawyers address three judges on a legal challenge to Government's refusal to recognise over 40 traditional leaders as chiefs.

Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako, DTA President Katuutire Kaura and a number of traditional leaders, including Himba Headman Hikuminwe Kapika from the Epupa area and Government-recognised Chief Paulus Tjavara, also from the Kunene region, joined some 250 people in the packed courtroom.

Prior to the start of the case - being heard by Judges Elton Hoff and Peter Shivute and Acting Judge John Manyarara - some 350 Hereros and Himba demonstrated in front of the court building in support of their traditional leaders as chiefs.

Paramount Chief Riruako is the first applicant in the case against the Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing and the President.

Government has recognised only four Herero traditional leaders as chiefs in terms of the Traditional Authorities Act of 1995.

They are Tuvahi David Kambazembi, of the Kambazembi Royal House, Christiaan Eerike Zeraua of the Zeraua Royal House, Chief Tjavara and Chief Kapuka Tom.

The last two are the elected chiefs of recognised constituencies of traditional authorities with whose official status he has no quarrel, Riruako states in an affidavit setting out his case.

However, Kambazembi, from Okakarara, and Zeraua, from Omatjete, were never elected by any constituency recognised in Herero customary law, Riruako claims.

He charges that they were recognised as chiefs due to their support for the ruling party in areas where elected traditional leaders had already been installed by the community.

Riruako's claims are disputed in an affidavit by Dr Nickey Iyambo, Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing.

Iyambo claimed that Riruako was never properly elected by the Herero people, but was appointed by the former South African authorities in 1978.

The 41 would-be chiefs suing him were in fact headmen or traditional councillors, and their claimed constituencies were not traditional authorities as recognised by the Traditional Authorities Act or Herero traditions and custom, the Minister also claims.

Instead, both he and Chief Zeraua state in their affidavits, the traditional authorities contemplated by the Act are five Herero Royal Houses - the Zeraua, Vita, Kambazembi, Mureti and Maherero Royal Houses.

The Mbanderu Royal House is also a separate traditional authority, Zeraua says.

Iyambo indicated that he was willing to also recognise another Herero Traditional Authority, to give Riruako government recognition as a traditional chief, but that Riruako would not agree to that.

The history of the Herero leadership over the past 140 years took centre stage in the arguments of senior counsel Theo Frank, for Riruako and his 41 co-applicants, and Dave Smuts, who acted for the Minister and President.

Frank argued that there must have been an ulterior motive behind the Minister's decision not to recognise a system of traditional leadership embraced by the majority of the Herero people.

The Minister could not give a single reason for his decision, he said.

The election of Maherero as Paramount Chief of the Hereros in the 1860s had been the start of a process of uniting his ethnic group into one front, Frank said.

That led to the German colonial authorities recognising Samuel Maherero as Paramount Chief in the 1890s, and to the royal houses with their hereditary leadership being replaced by traditional leadership that was chosen by the Herero people.

The Minister was resurrecting these royal houses, 140 years after their abolition - "to drag a horse long dead out of the ditch" - and trying to forget about the democratisation of the Hereros over the past almost century and a half, Frank charged.

Smuts contended that the Minister was trying to guide a return to the traditional leadership system that was in place before colonialism intervened.

Whereas Riruako wanted to see close to 50 Herero traditional authorities recognised by Government, the Oshiwambo-speaking people of Namibia who account for over half of the nation's people, have only seven traditional authorities, Smuts said.

Frank was assisted by Jesse Schickerling, on the instructions of Abe Naude of law firm Dr Weder, Kruger & Hartmann.

Smuts was instructed by Nixon Marcus from the Office of the Government Attorney.

Judgement was reserved.

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