| |
Contributions from
the Column
Media
On Peace on Earth
Land Reform in Namibia and Southern Africa
History of Social Anthropology
HIV/AIDS – a Practioners Guide
10/2005 |
|
Land rights: Scanty analysis
Justine Hunter (Ed.):
Who Should own the Land? Analyses and Views
on Land Reform and the Land Question
in Namibia and Southern Africa.
Windhoek, Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation and Namibia Institute for Democracy 2004,
133 pages, ISBN 99916-796-9-3,
available free of charge as pdf-file at http://www.nid.org.na
“The drums of war in South West Africa” was the title of an article in the German magazine Spiegel in July 2004, which painted a pessimistic picture of land reform in Namibia à la Robert Mugabe. The apparently racist diatribe – a hundred years after the indiscriminate massacre of the Herero people by German colonial troops – would in itself be sufficient grounds for a discussion of land disputes in Southern Africa. This collection of articles published by the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation and the Namibia Institute for Democracy should therefore be welcomed. There is consensus among politicians and civil society agents in Namibia that comprehensive land reform is essential, but 13 years after independence there has been little change in the inequitable distribution of land.
In his article Robin Sherbourne states that a major reason for this situation is the exorbitant price of farmland, which is beyond the reach of stock farmers. A profit can only be made from commercial livestock farming “if the farm is inherited and the land does not need to be purchased”. Despite the government’s policy of encouraging black Namibians into commercial farming through the Affirmative Action (AA) Loan Scheme, however, prospective farmers still have to purchase the land at prevailing market prices. Agriculture is therefore increasingly becoming a “rich man’s hobby”. The landless poor are ignored. According to Wolfgang Werner, these include the more than 42,000 farm workers’ families, whose situation is characterised by rock-bottom wages, a lack of access to education and health facilities, and an almost complete dependence on landowners. In 1997, a Commission of Enquiry made several suggestions for improvements, but these have yet to be heard. Farm workers in Namibia, as in Zimbabwe, are not the beneficiaries of land reforms. Quite the opposite in fact: often they are displaced after farm ownership changes as part of the land reform process.
Despite these shortcomings and the disappointingly slow progress, Lloyd Mambo Sachikonye is not worried that Namibia will become a second Zimbabwe. Namibia’s government is subject to less social pressure and does not need to capitalise to quite the same extent on the land question.
Unfortunately, while this book does include some worthwhile articles on individual aspects of the problem, it also has some significant weaknesses. In particular it fails to give an empirical overview of the outcomes of earlier land reforms in Southern Africa. Willie Breytenbach’s synthesis touches on some important points, and gives several examples from specific countries, but despite this, the work lacks a central theme and an analytical edge. Reference is made to such crucial problem areas as the limitations of the prevailing market-driven land reform model, and the controversial matter of donors exerting undue influence on policies, but nonetheless there is no real analysis. To conclude, some of the individual articles can be recommended, but as a whole the book does not provide a comprehensive picture of the current situation.
Armin Paasch
|
