Ongombo squatters free on bail

WITH a N$3 600 bail receipt and a promise to stay off the land they illegally lived on last month, 22 members of the //Naosan /Aes Committee arrested at the farm Ongombo West this past weekend returned to freedom yesterday afternoon.

The 18 adults, charged with contempt of court after refusing to honour an eviction order served on them at the farm on Friday afternoon, were joined in the courthouse by about 150 of their colleagues who squatted on the farm with them throughout July.Also among the group who arrived at court from holding cells at the Hosea Kutako airport and nearby village Seeis were four children living under the care of the arrested members.A demonstration planned by the larger group during the early morning, from the Dolam location to the courthouse, was called off at the last minute. They remained at court throughout the morning while waiting for their colleagues to appear, praying and collecting bail money among themselves and members of the public.Magistrate John Shuveni reduced his initial order of N$500 bail per person to N$200, after the group appealed to him, saying they were unemployed and had no income.The group managed to raise about N$5 600, which covered the total bail cost of N$3 600.The only bail condition attached was that the group must stay away from the Ongombo West farm.The eviction order that landed the group in court was applied for by Government, through the Ministers of Lands and Resettlement, Safety and Security, and Works and Transport.In his founding affidavit, Lands Minister Alpheus !Naruseb said the group first came to his attention on July 4, when they started camping outside the Ongombo East farm, a privately owned commercial farm owned by Italian national Nadia Savoldelli.He met with the group two days later after they had moved off the land and onto the neighbouring, state-owned Ongombo West.!Naruseb said he met with Savoldelli a week later to investigate the squatters’ claims that she had been rude to them and refused them entry to her farm in order to bury a relative back in March.The woman insisted that she never denied them access to the burial ground, even though ‘unlike previous occasions’, the respondents only sought her permission while the funeral entourage was already en route to the burial ground.’She further insisted that there had been previous burials and she had always given her permission, and that in future burials could proceed without problems and permission would not be denied. In view of that I believed that the matter had been resolved and the concerns of the respondents addressed,’ !Naruseb said.Group members spoken to yesterday however justified their claims, noting to their ancestral claims, their current lack of land, and the apparent hoarding of land by a select few.