HIMBA chiefs in the former Kaokoland have warned that the invasion of their tribal lands by settlers from the Omusati Region is fuelling tribal conflict.
In a petition addressed to President Hifikepunye Pohamba by Chief Paulus Tjavara of the Otjikaoko Traditional Authority and supported by five other Himba and Herero chiefs in the Kunene Region, the traditional leaders say the tension between their people and those who have ‘illegally’ settled on their land ‘are at boiling point’.
In the petition dated November 10, Tjavara called on President Pohamba to intervene in the land dispute, saying the Uukwaluudhi and the Ongandjera tribal authorities are ‘looting and grabbing land’ in eastern Kaokoland south of Ruacana.
The Kunene tribal leaders say the dispossession of their land by the Uukwaluudhi and Ongandjera traditional authorities had been brought to Government’s attention between 1992 and 2002, but the ‘matter was swept under the carpet by the Namibian Government’.
If the situation is allowed to continue it will spark ‘friction, tribal animosity, disunity and division among people who were united before Independence,’ Chief Tjavara wrote.
In terms of the Communal Land Reform Act, traditional authorities are the custodians of their respective communal areas and any land allocation should be done in accordance with principles and procedures laid out in the Act.
‘The residents of Kaokoland are being robbed of ancestral land on a daily basis by powerful individuals from Owamboland. In the Otjerunda traditional area, people from Owamboland have grabbed and fenced more than 55 plots in the grazing areas of Okomakuara, Omateteue, Omakange No. 1 and No. 2,’ Chief Tjavara writes in the petition.
‘The Uukwaluudhi Traditional authority grabbed quite substantial amounts of land from the Otjerunda traditional authority under Chief Mbuze Tjijeura, without permission from that traditional authority,’ the petition reads.
According to Tjavara’s petition, Omakange was grabbed from Chief Tjijeura’s jurisdiction and became ‘part of the Uukwaluudhi kingdom’. This, according to the chiefs, started two years after Independence.
Omakange in eastern Kaokoland was the first place allegedly declared by Uukwaluudhi King Gabriel Taapopi as his area of jurisdiction, after which a systematic ‘colonisation’ of other villages followed.
‘The assumption of authority over the above areas remained a mystery to the Himba and Herero traditional leaders and is seen as a disregard of their leadership,’ the petition states.
‘Resultantly a substantial number of people from Uukwaluudhi and other areas are continuously settling in these areas without the consent of our traditional leaders and purportedly so permitted by those traditional leaders complained of in this letter.
The chiefs say that they are under tremendous pressure from their subjects to provide answers about the illegal settling and fencing-off of their traditional areas by people from other areas.
‘Your Excellency, the current situation cannot be allowed to continue as our credibility as traditional leaders in our communities is waning as we cannot provide answers to them or remedy the situation,’ Chief Tjavara said in the petition.
He recommended that the boundaries between Kaokoland and the former Owamboland be made clear to both sides to avoid the current land grabbing and tribal conflict and to the ease tension.
