Zungu of Na?aJaqna fights backA senior councillor of the !Kung traditional authority says San communities speak for themselves. Communities apparently without leaders Sarah Zungu, senior councillor of the !Kung traditional authority, has hit back at allegations that she instigated San communities in the Na?aJaqna conservancy area against the leadership of the authority.The chief of the !Kung authority, Clony Arnold, has accused Zungu of inciting the San people living in the Omatako area against her leadership.
Arnold said this after various San communities in the former Tsumkwe West communal area had accused her and other leaders of the traditional authority of illegally allocating large tracts of land to primarily Oshiwambo-speaking Namibians.
She also took aim at the Omatako community, whom she referred to as the “Xhurus of Angola” and said they should return to Angola with Zungu where they can elect the latter as their chief.
Arnold also accused the Na?aJaqna conservancy office of mismanagement and embezzlement of funds and said there is no cooperation between the conservancy office and the local communities. Zungu is the former chairperson of the Na?aJaqna conservancy committee.
Zungu refused to comment on allegations regarding illegal land allocations but denied all other accusations levelled against her.
She was elected as a senior councillor in 1993, a position she still holds, but denied Arnold’s assertions that she wants to take over the reins as chief from Arnold.
She did, however, say that the !Kung community has essentially been without a leader since 2012 when the former chief, John Arnold, died in a car accident.
“If the head [the current chief Arnold] divides the nation as she does it will be very difficult to unite the people,” commented Zungu.
She stressed that the Omatako community “spoke for themselves” when they criticised the land allocations.
Zungu added that it was irresponsible of Arnold to propose that the Omatako community return to Angola.
“They [the Omatako community] did not come here yesterday. They have been here for a long time,” Zungu said.
According to an expert on San matters in the conservancy area, Professor Robert Hitchcock, many people living in the area were !Xun and Khwe San refugees, former SWATF/Koevoet soldiers, who had been resettled in the region by the former South African regime in the 1970s,and later in the 1980s by the former South West African transitional government.
In the early 1990s the new Namibian government continued with the relocation of these San communities into the area.
Of the allegations of mismanagement and embezzlement in the conservancy office, Zungu said the conservancy has a benefit distribution plan that is used to allocate generated funds.
“Anyone is welcome to the conservancy office to check the books,” Zungu countered.
GOVT ASKED TO INTERVENE
Giel Boshoff, who has been living in the area since the early 1970s and was given permission to farm in the Tsumkwe West area in 2011, has made an impassioned plea to the Namibian government to investigate and review all land allocations in the area.
He said since the recent flurry of land allocations by the traditional authority not fewer than six other people have settled on land that was previously apportioned to him by the late Chief John Arnold.
He proposed that President Hage Geingob institute an independent commission of inquiry to investigate each and every land allocation to stop the alleged uncontrolled capture of land.
Boshoff also expressed concern over the apparent reluctance by the Namibian police and the government forestry office to act upon charges of illegal land occupations and fencing, as well as the felling of protected trees.
Boshoff is a proponent of the government’s announcement in 2006 that small-scale agricultural resettlement farms be established in the area.
Hitchcock had noted that this announcement by the government came as a surprise to resident San who had worked hard to have the area declared a conservancy – in 2003 – which is communal land in which local people have rights over wildlife.
“I know the Na?aJaqna conservancy office and other factions are against this proposal but the proposed farms should be handed out for the preservation of the San’s land on condition that it only goes to the San. In that way they will be in control of their own land and their own lives and give the necessary self-pride of ownership that will bring them prosperity,” said Boshoff.
CATHERINE SASMAN