Namibia expropriating white-owned farms

Namibia has begun a fast-track expropriation of land from white farmers but will not follow neighboring Zimbabwe’s policy of seizing farms by force, Agriculture Minister Helmut Angula said Friday.

Minority whites own 75 percent of arable land in the southern African country, but a land redistribution policy that tries to match willing buyers with willing sellers is not moving fast enough, Angula said.

“We just announced the first act in the expropriation. I can say it is about nine farms,” Angula told Reuters in an interview in neighboring South Africa.

The ministry says it hopes to redistribute 22 million acres of commercial farmland, owned mostly by whites breeding cattle in the sprawling former German colony. Whites make up 5 percent of Namibia’s population of 1.9 million people.

Expropriation is triggered by a notice served upon the owner of the agricultural land. On receipt of the notice, the owner is required to prepare and submit a claim for compensation to the Lands Ministry.

'Unsatisfactory' pace of reform
The government had acted in response to the “unsatisfactory” pace of reform and other obstacles such as sudden increases in the price of land owned mainly by white farmers that made it too expensive for the state to purchase, he said.

“We have said, OK, the government also reserves the right to expropriate land if the pace is not satisfactory. We are doing it now,” Angula said.

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Land pressure has been mounting in Namibia in recent months, raising fears President Sam Nujoma might be tempted to emulate his Zimbabwean counterpart and fellow independence guerrilla leader Robert Mugabe.

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The issue has become more urgent because the country will hold presidential and parliamentary elections later this year, and many peasants complain they have not received the land Nujoma promised them at independence in 1990.

Over the past 14 years, Namibia has resettled 300,000 small holders and created 500 new commercial farmers, but a lot more needs to be done, Angula said.

He said Western countries previously reluctant to fund the land reform scheme had stepped forward with cash. Budget allocations for land redistribution were set to double to 50 million Namibian dollars ($7.33 million) this year from 20 million in 2003, he said.

Nujoma’s government backs Mugabe’s policy of seizing land from white farmers. But the policy has been blamed by Mugabe’s critics for causing an economic crisis in Zimbabwe that threatens the lives of millions of people in a country where large commercial white-owned farms once produced bumper crops.