Angolan San must get out ''Ancestral land not theirs'' The leader of the !Kung Traditional Authority accuses San people who originally fled from Angola of spreading allegations of wrongful allocations of land in the N‡aJaqna Conservancy. The chief of the !Kung Traditional Authority in the N‡aJaqna Conservancy, Glony Arnold, is accusing !Xun and Khwe San residents of Omatako, which she refers to as the ''Xhuru of Angola'' of not only disrespecting her chieftainship but also of wanting to oust mainly Oshiwambo-speaking Namibians from the area.Arnold last week vehemently denied claims that she and Agarob ''Alla'' Sauseb, former secretary to her father, the late chief John Arnold, and other councillors are illegally selling off communal land to non-San and allowing the new settlers to fence off large tracts of land in the conservancy area.
Members of various San communities in the conservancy have accused the leaders of the traditional authority of unlawfully and corruptly selling off communal land for as little as a bottle of whiskey, and up to N$20 000.
The communities further said that they are being pushed off the land in the process and cannot access natural resources on which they are dependent.
Arnold took aim at the ''Xhurus'', the small community whose picture appeared in NMH newspapers with an article in which the claims of illegal land transactions, largely with Oshiwambo speakers, were made.
“Most people making these allegations are the San from Angola, and not the [!Kung] San. They say the Owambos must go back to Owamboland; then they must go back to Angola,” Arnold fumed.
The Omatako San community are Vasekela San from Angola and Baragwena indigenous to the Kavango and former western Caprivi areas, and are essentially refugees who were pushed out of Angola in the late 1960s when Soviet and Chinese-backed insurgents fought the former Portuguese colonial regime in that country.
Many of them were subsequently abducted and forced into military service by the South African Defence Force (SADF) and in the mid-1970s were resettled in the Omatako where the !Kung were indigenous to the area.
During an earlier interview with NMH, the community at Omatako said they want to elect their own chief and traditional councillors, since the late John Arnold, and three years later his daughter, Glony, were imposed upon them.
Glony accused one of the !Kung councillors, Sarah Zungu, of instigating the ''Xhurus'' because she had wanted to become chief of the traditional authority herself.
She added: “They are from Angola.
They must go back to Angola. That is all I am saying.
They must go back to Angola and choose their own chief, Sarah Zungu, and their own councillors there. We !Kung do not have a problem with other nations.”
Glony added that if the Oshiwambo-speaking settlers in the N‡aJaqna Conservancy are expected to leave, then all others, including OvaHerero, Okavango and Damara people, should also leave the area.
She also took issue with the suggestion that her promotion in the Namibian army – from lance corporal to captain – after her inauguration as the !Kung chief was to earn favour for her newfound authority over the communal land.
“You cannot stay with the rank of lance corporal while you are a chief,” she protested, adding that the promotion was as a gesture of respect.
Sausab also fiercely denied all allegations of alleged illicit land deals levelled against him and insisted that the right procedures in land allocations are followed and that plots of only up to 20 hectares are allocated.
He denied ever having received any money from land allocations, saying if he had he would not have struggled with the upkeep of his six children.
He also accused the so-called ''Xhurus'' of spreading lies.
“This is not their ancestral land; they are people whose parents were introduced to this area from Angola. Here we have a chief who is accepted under the !Kung,” Sauseb said.
Sausab further denied that the San communities in the conservancy do not have access to fenced-off land, saying they can always cross the fences to collect firewood, devil''s claw and veldkos (wild fruits).
The San communities in the area have said that the new settlers do not allow them to cross the fences because fenced-off land is treated like the private property of the newcomers.
Accusations
Arnold further accused the N?aJaqna Conservancy, of which Zungu is the chairperson, of embezzlement and not working in the best interest of the San communities. She called on the minister of environment and tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, and the minister of urban and rural development, Sophia Shaningwa, to investigate the affairs of the conservancy office.
“Money disappears at the conservancy; I want the ministers to get involved,” she said, threatening that a complaint to the environment ministry could cause the closure of the conservancy office, with which the traditional authority has been at loggerheads since the late chief John Arnold''s term.
CATHERINE SASMAN