/Khomanin blame street kids debacle on Damara landlessness

Walter /Haseb and Jorro Eiseb, senior traditional councillors of the /Khomanin traditional community, are of the opinion that government is exercising targeted discrimination against the /Khomanin people, denying their women and children land despite their ancestral ties.

Unlike other traditional authorities, they believe they are being treated unfairly, as communal land was never bought back by government from those who forced them from their communal land, where they farmed, during the Odendaal Plan in the 1960s.

Abandoned

As a result, they often have no place to house their people, which can lead to children ending up on the streets in an attempt to make ends meet, they said.

"/Khomanin people are reduced to nomadic life. We do not even have a place to practice our customs, traditions, and norms – I think they want the /Khomanin traditional authority to be extinct," said /Haseb on The Evening Review last week.

This dire situation for street kids has resulted in many of them getting hit by cars and suffering severe injuries at traffic intersections, as they had no safe refuge.

Tragically, some even lost their lives in the Windhoek floods last December.

"Most of our children used to occupy the land that was purchased by a Russian billionaire and were forcibly chased away onto the streets. While we do our best to care for them, many end up running away from the shelters and assistance we provide, as life there remains an enduring hardship," said Eiseb.

Unheard

They indicated that this has been a long-standing grievance since independence, when their first attempt to reclaim land through "legal procedures" – engaging with senior government officials, such as Calle Schlettwein – came up short.

"He has our total history and is well aware of the /Khomanin people’s needs," said /Haseb.

They also appealed to the governor of the Khomas Region, Laura McLeod-Katjirua. "We have asked her to put it on her agenda for discussion, but we never got feedback or acknowledgement," said /Haseb. They also approached the land and agriculture ministries, but their cries went unanswered, they claimed.

In July of the previous year, they visited State House to outline their challenges as a traditional authority. They presented a detailed 20-page document highlighting their struggles in the "concentrated camps" they now inhabit. Despite the president's public comments about ancestral land, he could not attend to the Damara community's cries at his doorstep.

Consequently, they find themselves in a situation where they cannot even access the graves of their ancestors, as these are located on private land – with a court order keeping them at bay.

Excluded

When Namibian Sun asked them whether they benefit from the resettlement programme put in place by the government, Eiseb said: "My /Khomanin community does not at all benefit from the programme as we lack animal and crop husbandry, making it a daunting task to fill in the resettlement form to apply for communal land. Our settlement is in Arovlei, a settlement we were given legally, but it is not fully in our hands as the municipality still owns it."

In making their grievances known once again, the /Khomanin community is planning a peaceful demonstration on 20 September, to march and hand over a petition to the vice president’s office. "This is because the president has, in our presence, instructed the vice-president to look into all our cries, pleas and prayers, but as we have already alluded to, it has now become a year down the line," said Eiseb.