Tears for the People of Lwanyanda

MBANGO SIHELA

THE RIGHT TO PROPERTY, adequate shelter, freedom from arbitrary evictions, fair administrative action, and due process are all guaranteed by local and international human rights legislation in Namibia.

Despite this, town councils and municipal bodies often demolish the homes of poor Namibians which are deemed unlawful.

The most recent instance was the Lwanyanda community at Katima Mulilo.

Shelter demolition, regardless of legalities, is a physical and psychological violent act that dehumanises an already suffering segment of the population, further denying them their human rights.

Imagine the impact on the physical and psychological well-being of children at Lwanyanda and their education.

As one victim, Bo Mwaka Matengu, a single mother and grandmother, was pleading that she has school-going children and grandchildren, her cry was silenced by the brutal sound of a bulldozer.

Again, imagine the violence against the children and women of Lwanyanda.

Since colonisation, Africans have been subjected to cycles of violence to the point that open violence on poor black bodies has become commonplace across the continent.

This worsens the psychological wounds left by colonial violence – wounds that have yet to receive healing, reparations, and justice.

Martinican writer, poet, and politician Aimé Césaire tells us that dehumanising another person – whether by colonisation or, in this case, home demolition – dehumanises the perpetrators as well because it empties them of their humanity.

In essence, no one can dehumanise another person without consequences.

The Katima Mulilo Town Council may be operating within the law or their constitutional rights but the issue has little to do with rights as ‘landowners’.

Rather, it is about a lack of creativity, invention, and moral considerations on the part of those entrusted to run the council.

The council appears to have failed to handle a complex problem, and have resorted to a simplistic solution – demolition.

The tragedy is that the town council seems ill-suited to grasp, or is wilfully ignorant of, the socioeconomic factors underlying unlawful land occupations.

Sadly, it does not seem to understand the urgent necessity to morally and effectively address the rural-urban migration crisis.

Look, people leave their villages in search of better prospects in towns and cities, which is the primary cause of rural-urban migration worldwide. Katima Mulilo is no exception.

However, part of the root cause is that despite relatively low property prices at Katima Mulilo, rents are often unaffordable for most locals who face high unemployment and poverty rates.

Many live in distressed neighbourhoods with mud-walled houses and poor sanitation.

As a result, poor residents are compelled to choose between unaffordable rentals, affordable rentals in poor conditions, or the illegal invasion of unoccupied land, mostly on the outskirts of the town.

At Katima and perhaps many other towns in Namibia, unlawful occupation of unoccupied land is intimately tied to socioeconomic limitations and socio-spatial opportunities.

It does not take much logic to recognise that people living in precarious conditions are not driven by indifference to laws or a desire to make a political statement, but by a need to survive.

In principle, criticising without offering solutions may attract criticism as simply complaining. So, dear reader, here are two brief and broad proposals for the town council’s consideration.

However, I believe better solutions emerge from involving everyone, including tapping into the wisdom of our elders.

As I have emphasised, the illegal occupation of vacant land is tied to the town and region’s socio-economic challenges.

Firstly, addressing illegal land occupations demands a systematic, critical, inclusive, and moral approach to a socio-economic challenge.

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