Nyae-Nyae invasion grows, more arrested

POLICE arrested more farmers from Gam yesterday as the number of cattle in a veterinary control area reached the 1 000 mark and Government set up a team to investigate the invasion of the protected Nyae-Nyae conservancy.

With the old lady of Namibian politics, the South West Africa National Union (Swanu), blaming the slow pace of land reform for the invasion, Government appointed a high-level team of the Ministries of Agriculture, Water and Forestry; Justice; Safety and Security; Environment and Tourism and chaired by Information and Communication Technology to look into the issue.ICT Permanent Secretary Mbeuta Ua-Ndjarakana said yesterday that Government views the invasion in a very serious light as it threatens local and international meat markets and the health of wildlife, while it is also in violation of various national laws.’The high-level task team will visit the area soon to establish the facts on the ground, launch a public information and education campaign and propose solutions to Government to address the situation,’ he said.He said Government is committed to the well-being of farmers in rural areas, but also urges them to respect the law and act in the best economic interest of the country. Several Herero-speaking farmers from the Gam area invaded the protected conservancy after cutting the veterinary cordon fence over the May long weekend and more entered over the last weekend. The Police have arrested 18 of them, who appeared in court on Monday.The farmers claimed that their livestock were dying because of a poisonous plant in the Gam area. The plant also appears in the conservancy.Tsumkwe regional councillor Kxao Moses ≠Oma told The Namibian yesterday that Police have made more arrests but was unable to provide further details.Detective Inspector Edward Gariseb was out of reach.≠Oma confirmed that the latest number of Gam cattle in the conservancy stood at 1 020.Gerson Karupumbura Veii, political advisor to the Swanu leader, said Government has to take the blame for the situation.’Swanu is not in favour of the act of invasion itself. But the push factors need no longer be philosophised about as they are familiar to almost all of us, Government included and specifically the Ministry responsible for resettlement. What should have happened was to address the push factors some time ago,’ Veii said in a statement.Swanu said the Ovaherero people living in Gam and the Eiseb block were also in the categories of previously disadvantaged, dispossessed and displaced Namibians but were not taken into account by Namibia’s resettlement programme.’In fact these fellow Namibians, descendants of genocide victims, have been ignored in many respects by the current political dispensation … in Namibia. Resettlement programmes have totally evaded the people who in Swanu’s view are priority number one as far as resettlement is concerned,’ the party said.It said the invasion is a much broader issue, as it is the result of an unresolved land question for which Government has been dragging feet.’Eventually the so-called invaders’ lack of land and resources must be addressed urgently; their imprisonment will not bring about the solution to land allocation,’ Swanu said.They claim that they saw the problem coming and warned three years ago already about the consequences of an ‘indecisive, insensitive, inadequate, and inappropriate approach to the land question’.christof@namibian.com.na