Land eviction averted

Land eviction avertedCommunal land is state land An illegal fence erected at Oshana sheTemba must come down. The High Court has settled a longstanding legal wrangling over a 3 600-hectare piece of land at Oshana sheTemba.

The land was allegedly illegally fenced off by a headman of the Ompugulu, Petrus Kalekela, and his wife Beata, who threatened to evict the residents from the land.

Judge Shafimana Ueitele last week interdicted the Kalekelas from evicting the residents and restrained them from interfering in the residents'' rights to graze and reside on the communal land.

The Kalekelas were given three months from 6 December, the date of judgement, to remove the fence they have erected around the area.

The battle over the land started in July 2014 when the Kalekela couple attempted to evict Erastus Naango from the land he had occupied since 1992 with permission from the late headman, Toteya Willibard Mwandingi. Naango said in his court application that the Kalekela couple had arrived in the area in 2005, erected a corrugated-iron house on the commonage and then left.

He said the house remained empty until November 2013 when the Kalekelas returned and fenced off 3 600 hectares of land in the area.

Concerned about this, Reinhold Asheela in February 2014 sought an audience with King Immanuel Kaulume Elifas of the Aandonga people. This attempt was allegedly thwarted by Joseph Ashino of the Ondonga traditional authority, who acts as the king''s secretary.

During that same month the Kalekela couple sent letters to villagers residing around Oshana sheTemba, ordering them to leave the area. The couple completed fencing off the 3 600 hectares in April 2014, enclosing some villages and excluding others.

Water points were outside the fenced area and the couple also installed gates at some points along the fence but movement of cattle to the water points was impeded and residents found it difficult to get to firewood. The applicants sought advice from the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) in March 2014. When the Kalekelas did not respond to a request to remove the fence by July that year, a lawsuit was filed.

Beata Kakeleka, who filed an opposing affidavit, claimed that her husband had been allocated a farming area by Mwandingi as far back as 1986.

She said the land allocated to her husband was not part of the commonage but a “farming area” and that the allocation was confirmed by the Ondonga traditional authority.

She claimed that during 1990 and 2005 Naango and others had started encroaching on parts of this farming area. She admitted that they had started erecting fences in 2005 but denied that they had fenced in any of the villages.

Judge Ueitele said communal land belongs to the state and must be kept in trust for the benefit of traditional communities living in those areas.

He reiterated that the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002 prohibits the erection of new fences without proper authorisation, a new arrangement that came into effect on 1 March 2003.

The Act further limits the size of allocations to 20 hectares for residential land rights and 50 hectares for a farming unit.

CATHERINE SASMAN