Namibian president Hage Geingob vowed Monday to push ahead with land redistribution, echoing the SA government, where the issue has become a fierce political battleground.
Namibia, which was ruled by colonial Germany and then apartheid South Africa until 1990, has large swathes of agricultural land, as well as major diamond and platinum mining industries.
“Many Namibians were driven off their productive land,” Geingob said at the opening of a national conference in Windhoek to discuss new land policy. “The fundamental issue is the inequality… We also share a burning land issue and a racialised distribution of land resources with South Africa.
“This comes from a common history of colonial dispossession. What we also agree to is that the status quo will not be allowed to continue.”