Independence is meaningless - protesters

Independence is meaningless - protesters Supporters of former lands deputy minister Bernadus Swartbooi on Friday handed over two petitions to Christine //Hoebes, the deputy minister in the Office of the Prime Minister.

This followed President Hage Geingob's decision to fire Swartbooi and replace him with former poverty deputy minister Priscilla Boois on Thursday.

The group marched from Katutura to the lands ministry building where they demanded to see lands minister Utoni Nujoma, presidential affairs minister Frans Kapofi, or Boois.

Four more than four hours the group who chanted “down Hage” and refused to hand over their petition to the permanent secretary in the Presidency, Samuel Goagoseb.

“Why is Utoni being protected like this? We have created his luxury, let him come. Geingob is accusing Swartbooi of tribalism but he replaced him with a Nama and sent a Damara/Nama PS to receive our petition, it that not promoting tribalism,” the group shouted.

After a quick caucus in Nujoma's office a visibly nervous Goagoseb returned to inform the group that Nujoma was on leave, although Nujoma had just got into his vehicle and left.

“We know he is in there – let him come out. We will receive the petition from Goagoseb when we go to State House, now we are at the lands ministry to see Utoni,” the group shouted.

After negotiations failed to have the petition handed over to him, Goagoseb made a call to ask for a political leader because “the anger is getting out of hand, if we do not handle it carefully. And please do not send a Nama, they just told me they will not deal with a Damara/Nama PS.”

Although they threatened to camp outside the lands ministry the group eventually agreed to hand over the petitions to //Hoebes.

In the petition handed over by the landless Namibians the group gave Geingob 24 hours to make sure the land question is addressed urgently.





They also called on the head of state to agree to the demands and recognise the ancestral claims of indigenous people who had lost their ancestral land to successive colonial regimes.





The group also demand that the current land resettlement policy and programme be set aside pending the outcome of the scheduled land conference.

“We demand an advance announcement of the hosting of the second land conference in 2017,” said the group.

The group also demand a reshuffling of the land reform department as it is allegedly full of corruption, nepotism, favouritism, discrimination, ethnicity and tribalism, and rent-seeking.

JEMIMA BEUKES