DTA warns of tribal domination

THE ruling Swapo Party is spearheading ‘black apartheid’ against other previously disadvantaged population groups an opposition leader said on Saturday.

DTA President Katuutire Kaura said this when addressing the party’s annual executive meeting. Kaura cited top positions in the Namibian Defence Force and the Police in southern Namibia being occupied by members of one ethnic group from north-central Namibia, as examples of domination by one tribal group over others.”The people of the South cannot stand at street corners and watch as wealth is passing them by in the areas of their birth and is destined for the North, because they (the southerners) cannot get jobs at mines in the Karas Region,” said Kaura.”It is criminal not to have Police station commanders in southern Namibia who are Nama, Damara, Baster or Coloured,” Kaura lashed out.”Why should these stations be commanded by people from the proverbial North?” he asked.”This is unfair.”The same went for mayors, who came from the North as in the case of Luederitz and Keetmanshoop, The people in the South should have leaders from among their own people, he added.Kaura warned the Rehoboth Basters that their ancestral land will soon be “gone with the wind”.”Your Captain (tribal leader) is busy selling you out, so wake up.Rehoboth used to provide the building contractors of this country, but the building industry is handed over on a silver platter by the Swapo government to the Chinese,” Kaura warned.Similarly, the ancestral land of the Nama people, which had become commercial farmland under colonial rule, is occupied by Namibians of the north-central areas who have become resettlement beneficiaries under Government’s land reform programme.”Southerners wake up, the land of your forefathers is bought up for resettlement, while you are kicked off those (Government) farms, when you move there because of drought.”According to the DTA President, many of the northern resettlement beneficiaries, who were allocated land in the Hardap and Karas Regions, would “continue working in Windhoek and plough their mahangu (millet) fields in the North at Onyaanya (just south of Ondangwa).”What a waste – how long are we going to tolerate this in justice?” The DTA was the political home for those who fight for fairness and equity, he added.The DTA would fight ethnic dominance, marginalisation and deliberate implementation of ethnic dominance by one population group.”I am pained by the black apartheid perpetrated by Swapo,” the DTA leader told the party’s Executive Committee.Kaura cited top positions in the Namibian Defence Force and the Police in southern Namibia being occupied by members of one ethnic group from north-central Namibia, as examples of domination by one tribal group over others.”The people of the South cannot stand at street corners and watch as wealth is passing them by in the areas of their birth and is destined for the North, because they (the southerners) cannot get jobs at mines in the Karas Region,” said Kaura.”It is criminal not to have Police station commanders in southern Namibia who are Nama, Damara, Baster or Coloured,” Kaura lashed out.”Why should these stations be commanded by people from the proverbial North?” he asked.”This is unfair.”The same went for mayors, who came from the North as in the case of Luederitz and Keetmanshoop, The people in the South should have leaders from among their own people, he added.Kaura warned the Rehoboth Basters that their ancestral land will soon be “gone with the wind”.”Your Captain (tribal leader) is busy selling you out, so wake up.Rehoboth used to provide the building contractors of this country, but the building industry is handed over on a silver platter by the Swapo government to the Chinese,” Kaura warned.Similarly, the ancestral land of the Nama people, which had become commercial farmland under colonial rule, is occupied by Namibians of the north-central areas who have become resettlement beneficiaries under Government’s land reform programme.”Southerners wake up, the land of your forefathers is bought up for resettlement, while you are kicked off those (Government) farms, when you move there because of drought.”According to the DTA President, many of the northern resettlement beneficiaries, who were allocated land in the Hardap and Karas Regions, would “continue working in Windhoek and plough their mahangu (millet) fields in the North at Onyaanya (just south of Ondangwa).”What a waste – how long are we going to tolerate this in justice?” The DTA was the political home for those who fight for fairness and equity, he added.The DTA would fight ethnic dominance, marginalisation and deliberate implementation of ethnic dominance by one population group.”I am pained by the black apartheid perpetrated by Swapo,” the DTA leader told the party’s Executive Committee.