Namibia & poverty

  

Namibia is a a country in Southern Africa. Its population is over two million eight hundred thousand. Twenty six per cent of its population live in extreme poverty.

 The most deprivation occurs in the the rural areas.

https://worldpoverty.io/ma

A report in the Namibian would appear to indicate that almost half of Namibia’s population are living in poverty or extreme poverty.

‘Almost half of the country’s population are faced with poverty, says prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila. She was speaking at the launch of the delayed sixth National Development Plan (NDP6) by the National Planning Commission (NPC).

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the government had reduced poverty from 38% to about 18%, however, matters have since worsened.

“If you look at the new formula to calculate poverty, close to 50% of the population is living under poverty,” she said. Since 2016, the country experienced a macro-economic deterioration which exposed Namibia’s vulnerability to external shocks, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said.

“These had a negative impact on our poverty and inequality. In fact, the gains we made in reducing poverty were almost completely wiped out,” she said.

A month ago, The Namibian reported that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said 43% of the country’s population are experiencing multidimensional poverty.

According to the UNFPA 2022 annual report, the Gini coefficient index shows that income inequality in Namibia stands at 57,2%.

The Gini index is a summary measure of income inequality, which incorporates the detailed shared data into a single statistic, summarising the dispersion of income across the entire income distribution.

The report indicates that the unemployment rate stands at 33,4%, with youths aged 15-34 taking up 46,1%, while women take up 48,5%.

The report further indicates that 46% of households are female-headed, while 41% are male-headed.

At that time, economic analyst Arney Tjaronda told The Namibian these figures are not surprising, as the cost of living has drastically increased while salaries remain low.

He said most concerning is the high unemployment rate in the country, and a job market that is unable to absorb the high number of graduates’.

https://www.namibian.com.na/nearly-50-of-population-living-in-poverty-says-pm/

An unemployment rate of over a third with young people and women being affected the most means that many Nambians are struggling under capitalism.

The World Bank notes: ‘Economic advantage remains in the hands of a relatively small segment of the population, and significant inequality continues. This lack of inclusiveness and society’s vast disparities have led to a dual economy—a highly developed modern sector, co-existing with an informal subsistence-oriented one’.

‘Namibia ranks as one of the world’s most unequal countries. Its Gini coefficient of 59.1 in 2015 was second only to South Africa. Geographical disparities in both economic opportunities and access to services are large and widening. High levels of inequality result in starkly different poverty rates across different groups, including by age and gender’.

‘Due to consistently negative per capita GDP growth since 2016, and the negative impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods, poverty rates are projected to have increased. Typically, female-headed households, less educated, larger families, children and the elderly, and labourers in subsistence farming, are particularly prone to poverty.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/namibia/overview

Capitalism is global. Capitalism is the cause of such misery. Capitalism is not the solution. Socialism is.

Namibia sues Germany for "forgotten genocide"

 Representatives of two indigenous groups have filed a class action suit in New York against Germany seeking reparations for an alleged genocide of their peoples by German colonial rulers over a century ago in what is now Namibia.

  The suit filed by the Ovaherero and Nama people on Thursday in New York also demands that their representatives be included in negotiations between Germany and Namibia on the issue.

  The plaintiffs said they were bringing the class action suit "on behalf of all Ovaherero and Nama worldwide, seeking reparations and compensation for the genocide" suffered at the hands of the German colonial authorities.

  They said they were also seeking a declaration of their right "to be included in any negotiation between Germany and Namibia" and that no settlements can be reached unless they are among the signatories.

  The dispute harkens back to a period in the late 19th and early 20th century when South West Africa, now known as Namibia, was a German colony.

  The suit alleges that from 1885 to 1903 about a quarter of Ovaherero and Nama lands -- thousands of square miles -- was taken without compensation by German settlers with the explicit consent of German colonial authorities.

  It also claims that German colonial authorities turned a blind eye to rapes by colonists of Ovaherero and Nama women and girls, and the use of forced labour.

  Tensions boiled over in early 1904 when the Ovaherero rose up, followed by the Nama, in an insurrection crushed by German imperial troops.

  The suit alleges that as many 100,000 Ovaherero and Nama people died in a campaign of annihilation led by German General Lothar von Trotha.

  The plaintiffs include Vekuii Rukoro, identified as the paramount chief of the Ovaherero people, David Frederick, chief and chairman of the Nama Traditional Authorities Association, and the non-profit Association of the Ovaherero Genocide in the USA, Inc.

The need for union unity

Namibia has more than 40 registered unions and three union federations - the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), the Trade Union Congress of Namibia (Tucna) and the recently formed Namibian National Labour Organization (Nanlo).

Of these three, only one - the NUNW has bargaining powers - while the other two can only endorse whatever would have been agreed on, although this does not happen quite often.

Nantu is affiliated to NUNW but there is another - the Teachers Union of Namibia - that is affiliated to Tucna. The two do not sit together to plan on how best they can represent teachers. Likewise, public servants are represented by Namibia Public Workers’ Union that is affiliated to NUNW and the Public Service Union of Namibia that is under Tucna.

The division in the labor movement is largely political. The NUNW is linked the ruling party Swapo. It was formed in 1970 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the liberation war. NUNW is affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Union (WTFU). Some of its affiliates are the Namibian Food and Allied Workers union (Nafawu), the Namibian Transport and Allied Workers Union (Natawu), the Metal and Allied Namibian Workers Union (Manwu), and the Mineworkers Union of Namibian (MUN).

Tucna was formed as a merger between two major legislative organizations namely the Namibia Federation of Trade Unions (NAFTU) and Namibia People’s Social Movement (NPSM) in May 2002. Tucna is a member of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Nanlo was formed about two years ago by the former NUNW general secretary Evilastus Kaaronda. Just like the other two, Nanlo also has affiliates have members drawn from the same constituencies.

Already these powerful affiliates, despite representing same constituencies and harboring same demands, do not agree on many occasions. The division became clear Tuesday after the Namibia Public Workers’ Union leaders accepted the government’s 5 percent salary increase, which the teachers’ union that is demanding an 8 percent salary increase has refused to accept. Although teachers have their own union, they are considered as civil servants together with other government workers represented by the public workers’ union.

Practically, it means that the two unions have to agree on their demands since they both belong to the National Union of Namibian Workers. This is not happening since the public workers’ union leadership accepted the offer, with their general secretary Peter Nevonga saying that they understand the country’s economic situation.

Nevonga met President Hage Geingob Tuesday in Windhoek where he told the head of state that their members have accepted the 5 percent offer. The teachers’ union leaders also met Geingob Tuesday in a closed door meeting that lasted more than two hours but came out with no agreement.

Labor experts Herbert Jauch said the dividing line between the NUNW and Tucna is the question of political affiliation that causes the two federations to operate as rivals and competitors to each other with little prospects of co-operation around common workers’ interests. Workers, Jauch also said, need to assess if the old divisions between unions are still relevant today or if there are possibilities for co-operation, while the labour movement needs to ask itself how it can reach those tens of thousands of vulnerable workers who are still not unionized.

“Failure to address these key challenges might see trade unions losing their relevance as a uniting force to spearhead workers’ interests in Namibia,” Jauch concluded.

.

German Genocide

In 1884, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck convened a meeting of European powers known as the Berlin Conference. Though the conference determined the future of an entire continent, not a single black African was invited to participate. Bismarck declared South-West Africa a German colony suitable not only for trade but for European settlement. Belgium's King Leopold, meanwhile seized the Congo, and France claimed control of West Africa.

The German flag soon became a symbol of fear for local tribes, who had lived there for millennia. Missionaries were followed by merchants, who were followed by soldiers. The settlers asserted their control by seizing watering holes, which were crucial in the parched desert. Like Belgians in the Congo and the British in Australia, the official German policy was to seize territory that Europeans considered empty, when it most definitely was not. There were 13 tribes living in Namibia, of which two of the most powerful were the Nama and the Herero. 

Germany's behavior in South-West Africa was a precursor of German actions in the Holocaust. The boldest among them argued that South-West Africa was the site of the first genocide of the 20th century. “Our understanding of what Nazism was and where its underlying ideas and philosophies came from,” write David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen in their book The Kaiser's Holocaust, “is perhaps incomplete unless we explore what happened in Africa under Kaiser Wilhelm II.”

German researchers treated Africans as mere test subjects. Papers published in German medical journals used skull measurements to justify calling Africans Untermenschen — subhumans. If these tactics sound chillingly familiar, that's because they were also used in Nazi Germany. The connections don't end there. One scientist who studied race in Namibia was a professor of Josef Mengele—the infamous “Angel of Death” who conducted experiments on Jews in Auschwitz. Heinrich Goering, the father of Hitler's right-hand man, was colonial governor of German South-West Africa. What they did in Namibia, they did with Jews.

Many German farmers felt that South-West Africa was theirs for the taking. Disputes with local tribes escalated into violence. In early 1904, the Germans opened aggressive negotiations that aimed to drastically shrink Herero territory, but the chiefs wouldn't sign. They refused to be herded into a small patch of unfamiliar territory that was badly suited for grazing. Colonial leaders sent a telegram to Berlin announcing an uprising, though no fighting had broken out.

Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha took over as colonial governor, and with his arrival, the rhetoric of forceful negotiations gave way to the rhetoric of racial extermination. Von Trotha issued an infamous order called the Vernichtungsbefehl—an extermination order.

“The Herero are no longer German subjects,” read von Trotha's order. “The Herero people will have to leave the country. If the people refuse I will force them with cannons to do so. Within the German boundaries, every Herero, with or without firearms, with or without cattle, will be shot. I won’t accommodate women and children anymore. I shall drive them back to their people or I shall give the order to shoot at them.”

German soldiers surrounded Herero villages. Thousands of men and women were taken from their homes and shot. Those who escaped fled into the desert—and German forces guarded its borders, trapping survivors in a wasteland without food or water. They poisoned wells to make the inhuman conditions even worse—tactics that were already considered war crimes under the Hague Convention, which were first agreed to in 1899.

80 percent of the Herero tribe died, and many survivors were imprisoned in forced labor camps. After a rebellion of Nama fighters, these same tactics were used against Nama men, women, and children. About 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were murdered.

Only after Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990 did the German government really begin to acknowledge the systematic atrocity that had happened there. Although historians used the word genocide starting in the 1970s, Germany officially refused to use the term. The German government used a technicality to avoid formally apologizing for genocide in South-West Africa saying that the Genocide Convention was put in place in 1948, and cannot be applied retroactively. Nevertheless, more and more German politicians have begun talking openly about genocide. In July, the president of the German parliament, Norbert Lammert, in an article for the newspaper Die Zeit, described the killing of Herero and Nama as Voelkermord. Literally, this translates to “the murder of a people”—genocide.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brutal-genocide-colonial-africa-finally-gets-its-deserved-recognition-180957073/?no-ist

"Genocide doesn't have a statute of limitations"

On July 6, a delegation of Namibian leaders, lawyers, and heads of civic organisations, arrived in Berlin hoping to meet with German President Joachim Gauck, to present him with a petition signed by over 2,000 German public figures including members of the Bundestag, the German national parliament. The document, titled "Genocide is Genocide ", called on the German government to accept "historical responsibility" for the genocide perpetrated against the Herero and Nama people over a century ago.

In October 1904 General Lothar von Throtha, the commander in German "South-West Africa", issued an extermination order - to kill any Herero, armed or not, found within the borders of German colonial territory. As the Herero fled into the desert towards Botswana, the German authorities sealed off the border. Thousands died of thirst and starvation, the rest were sent to concentration camps. By 1909, 65,000 people had been killed, and an estimated 80 percent of the Herero people and 50 percent of the Nama had been wiped out.

In 2001, the Herero People's Reparations Corporation filed a civil lawsuit with a US court requesting $2bn in recompense from the German government and several corporations. The legal case was unsuccessful.

In 2004, at the hundred year anniversary of the Herero uprising, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's development aid minister expressed regret for the mass killing. "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time". But the minister dismissed calls for financial compensation for the victims' descendants. Many Namibian activists thought the minister's statement did not go far enough.

In 2011, the skulls of 20 victims of the genocide - for decades stored at the Berlin Medical Historical Museum - were handed over in an official ceremony to a Namibian delegation.

In 2015, a motion was submitted in the German parliament by the Left Party calling on Angela Merkel's government to apologise to Namibia, and repudiating the effort to use development assistance to deal with the historic trauma, calling it "a unilateral move, made without consulting the Namibians". The motion said development assistance is entirely different from "restorative justice", which requires that the injustice first be recognised.

When the Namibian leaders arrived in Berlin, they were planning to reiterate their demands for an apology, reparations, and for the repatriation of the remaining skulls to Namibia. Yet by the second week of July, reports emerged that the Namibian delegation was given the "cold shoulder", did not get to meet with President Gauck, and that the petition was handed to a lower-level bureaucrat in the president's office. The delegation was confined to a street entrance, and not invited to sit down to present the document. The Herero leader, Chief Vekuii Rukoro, who led the delegation, was displeased by the reception. He denounced the German government, saying:

 "The refusal of the German president to personally come and receive such a historic document at this critical juncture and the uncivilised manner in which his office decided to receive such a dignified and high ranking delegation ..." - adding that the behaviour showed the "punch of typical German arrogance and paternalism which we reject with the contempt they deserve".

On July 8, Norbert Lammert of the Christian Democrat party, and president of the Bundestag, wrote in Die Zeit, that Germany perpetrated a "race war" and a "genocide" in Namibia.

The Namibian delegation has now set October 2 as the deadline for an answer to their demands for reparations. The activists have since travelled to London where they met with a team of lawyers to ponder legal action against Germany, should it miss the upcoming deadline.

"The whole of Africa will be united behind the Ovaherero and Nama of Namibia, and Germany will be the new international exile state guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity," warned ChiefRukoro.

The original 'lebenstraum'

Namibia, once known as South-West Africa, became a German colony in 1884 under the rule of Otto von Bismarck and was lost to the British during the First World War.

In 1904 the Herero and Nama people launched a rebellion against German colonial rule, over the specific issue of land rights. After around 150 Germans were killed in the uprising, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha was appointed Supreme Commander of South-West Africa and landed with 14,000 reinforcement troops. The fighting had subsided and the Herero and Nama people were ready to start negotiations.

But to von Trotha, the idea of negotiating went against German and Prussian honour and military tradition. He was determined to crush the rebellion fully. After the Germans had defeated the Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, any survivors were either brutally slaughtered or driven into the Kalahari Desert. Von Trotha then built a 200 mile fence to seal off the desert and leave the Herero and Nama to die of thirst and starvation.

In a proclamation to his troops, Trotha clearly outlined the definition of genocide:

"Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them."

"I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, should be expelled from the country."

When news of the atrocities reached Germany there was national outcry, but Kaiser Willhelm I refused to withdraw the Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order). Only after two more months of hunting down and slaughtering them did von Trotha receive orders to accept the surrender of the Herero people. Any survivors, most of them women and children, were herded into concentration camps for slave labour and medical experiments.

The genocide cost the lives of an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people, or 80 percent of the Herero population. German attitudes at the time foreshadow those used by the Nazis to justify their ambitions for territorial expansion and the Holocaust, such as the crusade for so-called 'Lebensraum' - or living space.

A young soldier Franz von Epp wrote in a letter home: "This world is being redistributed. With time we will inevitably need more space and only by the sword will we be able to get it".

Later on in his career, Epp became a senior Nazi and was appointed Reichskomissar for Bavaria.

The Genocide Germany Forgot

"Every Herero on German territory, with or without rifles, with or without cattle, will be shot. I'm not taking in any more women and children, drive them back to their people or have them shot." - General Lothar von Trotha on October 2, 1904

Between 1884 and 1915, Germany was the colonial master in what is today Namibia. In 1904, the Herero launched a major uprising against their German colonial masters, killing more than 100 Germans. The uprising led Germany's von Trotha to order to decimation of the entire Herero population. Fortunately, he did not succeed, and today there are again 120,000 Herero and 60,000 Nama minorities in the country. The Herero people were massacred between 1904 and 1905. More than 70,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama, most of the tribal populations, were killed as an anti-colonial uprising was crushed. Christian Kopp from Berlin Postkolonial says the term genocide is appropriate "because there was a clear intent to wipe out the Herero and the Hama." Lothar von Trotha said at the time he would "wipe them out with rivers of blood."

Henning Melber, an expert on Namibia from the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Stockholm. "The point about Germany in South West Africa is that it waged a war quite openly that these days would classify as genocide. It is not as if genocide was practiced in secret. In imperial Germany, events in German South West Africa were considered important and the political elite boasted quite openly that they had wiped out the Herero and Nama." During the fight German soldiers are said to have forced the surviving Herero into the Omaheke desert and blocked access to all water sources. Thousands died a painful death from starvation and thirst.

Niema Movassat, deputy for the opposition Left Party in the German parliament, says hundreds of thousands were shot or hanged, or deprived of water and left to die of thirst in the desert. Or put into camps for forced labour. "One has to take responsibility for this," he told DW. At the end of February, the Left Party brought a motion before parliament calling for the murderous campaign in what was then German South West Africa to be declared as genocide. "There has never been an official apology," said Movassat.

It was only after Namibia became independent in 1990 that the full scope of the crime became public knowledge in the country itself. 100 years after its deadly campaign against the Herero people of Namibia, the then Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul visited the former colony on Saturday. She asked for the country's forgiveness. "We Germans recognize our historical, political, moral and ethical responsibility and guilt," the development minister said. Wieczorek-Zeul told several thousand Herero people who gathered at the site of the battle. "Blinded by colonial delusion," she said, Germans brought "violence, discrimination, racism and destruction" to the country. She said, the crimes that took place a hundred years ago would have been defined as genocide, and von Trotha would have been brought before a criminal tribunal.

http://www.dw.de/germany-asks-for-namibians-forgiveness/a-1298060

Radiation poisoning

In 1975 Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto set up its Rössing uranium mine. It needed a place to house its black workforce so it built Arandis in Namibia. Arandis is still the home of the workers, but has lost the financial support of the company. It looks like it is doomed to decay.

Many men who worked in the mine's early days claim to suffer from severe illnesses including cancers, hypertension and anaemia.  Hoseas Gaomab, worked in the mine's laboratory for 23 years. He knows many men who have died. But he doesn't know why.  Gaomab is sick, too. He suffers from a disease that has made his legs and hands numb for the much of the past 20 years. It simply didn't occur to Gaomab that his illness could be work-related. Then, in 1993, a medical student named Reinhard Zaire arrived, interviewing miners and taking blood samples. "He asked us how long we worked for Rössing and when we got sick. Then he called us together to tell us we were irradiated."

He concluded that there was an increased risk for uranium miners to develop malignant diseases such as cancer. Shortly after the report was published, Zaire was dismissed by the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services, his research permission was revoked, and he was accused of practising as a medical doctor illegally. Rio Tinto slammed Zaire's report.
 "To date, there have been no confirmed occupational illness related deaths," said Rio Tinto spokesperson
There are no records available from the company of what happens to workers once they leave Rössing. After their retirement, the men return to their homes in rural Namibia, where they rarely have access to proper healthcare facilities.

Too Little, too late - again

Almost one million people out of Namibia’s 2.3 million population face moderate to serious levels of food insecurity. One-third of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and Namibia ranked 120 out of 187 countries on the 2012 UNDP Human Development Index. Malnutrition is the second-most common cause of death recorded for children under five, even in non-drought years. And with the onset of this year’s drought, an estimated 109,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition.

The Namibian government in May estimated this year's harvest would yield 42 percent less than 2012. "Namibia still does not feed itself, and the middle-income classification comes from livestock, mining and fisheries industries - [this] does not provide an accurate situation on the ground," Cousins Gwanama, head of the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, told Al Jazeera. 

Japhet Iitenge, director of the Disaster Risk Management office, said "Our needs start with food to feed the people. It is the ultimate goal to provide food and water for both animals and people, but there are other needs to avert the suffering of our population."

Farmers across the country wait for food rations and for the international community to take the situation more seriously. In May, Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba was forced to declare a state of emergency and requested $33.7 million in international support to avert a crisis.  Algeria donated $1m in food aid but the reaction from the rest of the international community has been poor. Without people dying en masse and absent images of decaying cattle skeletons across the sand, the world is unlikely to respond Namibia's desperation anytime soon.

Mukaokondunga Tjikundi says the family have no expectations of receiving help from anyone. "We are just collecting wood, selling them, trying (to survive). We have no expectations of government, of anyone, because you can never know when the help will end."

"Given that we are human beings, we wait for that moment when people start dying," said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Jack Ndemena, water and sanitation officer. "But this is a situation that can be arrested. We can try to help now in order not to go to that extreme situation when people start dying."

Namibia child poverty

One in three children in Namibia still grows up in households that are poor.

 Long-term impacts on children, especially if poverty starts at an early age or persists over several years. These impacts include a higher risk of low birth weight and child mortality, stunting and poor educational outcomes. Poverty can also impact on children's emotional and psychosocial wellbeing as the daily struggle to make ends meet can increase stress and tension within a household.

Fact of the Day

A report indicates that more than 30 percent of Namibia's children live in poverty.

Wasting food

The Namibian city of Windhoek put an abrupt stop to the dumping of expired foods at the Windhoek rubbish dumps. Hundreds of people stood ready with sacks in hand, just as they have done for months each Thursday, a City of Windhoek officials arrived on the scene and told Police officers that the food trucks were stopped and won’t dump food.

A manager at a supermarket in Windhoek said that “most of the stuff that we throw away is still fit for human consumption”. He said that “in the end there is so much that is thrown away” and suggested that instead of large scale food being dumped, a system could be created where the food is collected and redistributed to the poor and needy.

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, reports every year “consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food - 222 million tons - as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa - 230 million tons”.

BEE - Black Elite Enrichment

"Most African politicians play the ethnic card to stay in power. And unfortunately the masses don’t realise that they are being duped – they don’t understand that their interest are different from those of the elite even if they happen to come from the same tribe. Why? The masses have no sense of its own identity and are not politically consciousness of its own interests. It is only when that consciousness develops that this group would be transformed from being a class ‘in itself’ to a class ‘for itself’. Now because of the under-developed nature of our society, sociologically speaking that is, most of our people think that the main problem confronting them are ethnic in nature forgetting the central issue which is the daily struggle for economic survival. So, it’s important that we bring the issue of class and class struggle back in our discussion...
...why after a good 21 years into our independence all we are seeing is the yawning inequality in the Namibian society leading to a sharply divided nation of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. This is not what we promised our people. What we promised our people was to imagine a country with no poverty. With no one who sleeps under bridges, no one looking through garbage for food. On the contrary: everyone would have what you or I would call a decent home and a decent standard of living...But when independence came, they made a total u-turn and adopted and accepted the capitalist agenda in toto...
....The masses should now wake up from their deep slumber and wage a new struggle for their own liberation."

Quoted from T Kaure in The Namibian

WHITE TOURISM

Statistics released reveal that previously disadvantaged Namibians only own 90 of the 1 361 registered tourism establishments in the country The bulk, at 927 are owned by white Namibians while the rest, 344, are foreign owned. No previously disadvantaged Namibian owns an air charter operator's licence or one to operate a tented lodge, while only one owns a trophy hunting licence or a guest-farm. Most black Namibians in the tourism and hospitality sector are tour and safari operators, at 26, while 21 are tour facilitators, and 24 bed and breakfast operators. Establishments such as tented lodges, air charter operations and guest farms are very expensive to operate but generate the most revenue in the tourism industry, thus mostly owned by the previously advantaged white community and foreigners. Some foreigners are also involved in low-end tourism initiatives that are not very capital intensive, thus directly competing with indigenous Namibian operators.

A continent of cheap labour and little regulation

This article reports that a "uranium rush" seems to be under way, based on the assumption that nuclear power might fill the world's current energy gaps in Namibia . Namibia's uranium oxide is exported in its raw form and enriched in countries with uranium converters such as France, the US, Canada and China.For almost 30 years, Roessing was the only uranium company in the country.A second uranium mine, Langer Heinrich, became operational in 2007 and 40 exclusive prospecting licenses and 12 mining licenses had already been issued by September 2008.

Exposure to even relatively low levels of radiation over a long period can be extremely harmful to the health of workers and communities living around uranium mines.Several workers who spent long years working at uranium mines developed serious health problems.Cancerous strains are commonplace as workers are exposed to dust and radon gas daily and thus develop diseases such as TB and lung cancer.Although mining companies usually deny any responsibility and refuse to compensate workers, there is increasing evidence of a link between uranium mining and workers' health problems.

Uranium mining uses an enormous amount of water.
In a recent article in The Namibian, the writer pointed out that the proposed uranium mine by the Canadian company Forsys Metal, would use 1 million litres of water each day.Situated on the Valencia farm in the Erongo region, the mine would consume in only three months the amount of water that the current users in the area would consume in 36 years.Given that all existing and envisaged uranium mines are in the Namib desert, one needs to ask if it is wise to spend Namibia's most scarce resource - water - on mining operations that may only bring short-term benefits.

Besides using huge amounts of water, uranium mining also leaves large craters as it relies on open-pit operations.Once mining activities cease, the huge holes remain.Furthermore, radioactive dust particles may be blown over many kilometres.

It is telling that Canadian and Australian mining companies seem to spearhead the new rush for Africa's uranium. Despite high quality uranium deposits in their own countries, they are focusing on Africa's uranium resources, with Niger, Malawi, Tanzania and Namibia the main targets. There seems to be only one explanation for this paradox: labour costs are higher, and environmental restrictions are more stringent in Australia and Canada.

America Needs African Mercenaries

An American private security company put 'help wanted' ads in Namibian local papers in September 2007, hundreds of Namibians lined up to apply for the non-combat security guards positions on offer in Iraq and Afghanistan. A firm called Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group (SOC-SMG) announced a recruitment drive through the adverts in local newspapers. The Nevada-based private security company clients include the US Army and the US Marine Corps. Namibia’s independence war ended nearly 20 years ago, but the experience gained by many soldiers during the conflict has made the country a fertile hunting ground for private security companies seeking recruits for the world's 21st century wars.

Alex Kamwi, executive director of Namibia Ex-Freedom Fighters and War Veterans Association said most former soldiers "were just educated at the battlefield, with an AK-47." As a result, he said, many veterans were unemployed, had few marketable skills and were "very, very poor...They were really rushing, in large numbers, to get a job – because they are suffering!" said Kamwi. About 35 percent of Namibia's about 2 million people are unemployed.

The private military and security companies in support of US-led efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are increasingly looking to Africa for so-called "third-country nationals (TCNs)", who are playing a growing role in the military-backed operations there. An estimated 155,000 contract personnel are currently in Iraq in support of the US occupation. About 30 percent of them are TCNs, according to the US Department of Defence. These contractors are used for a range of jobs such as non-combat security contractors hired to guard personnel and convoys, as well as static installations, including bridges and pipelines. TCNs with more advanced skills are sometimes employed to train military personnel, participate in de-mining operations, or interrogate detainees.

The growth of the private security industry is increasingly targetting developing countries where many TCNs have valuable conflict experience, said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a Washington DC-based trading group for private security companies. Should the US government only hire Americans to do these jobs, the costs would just be insane

"They have some knowledge about risk mitigation, and about what is risky in a war zone. Most people in the world don’t know what this is. People in Africa do. I mean a lot of people have been in these areas and they have this amazing amount of experience they bring to their jobs," Brooks said.

Hiring personnel from Africa also has another attraction. "They tend to be much cheaper than Americans or Westerners – maybe by a factor of 5 or 6," Brooks told IRIN. "Should the US government only hire Americans to do these jobs, the costs would be just insane."

What is inexpensive by Western standards can be a pay bonanza in Africa and other developing countries. In Namibia, word of mouth spread that the security jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan would pay about US$550 per month, or about 10 times the monthly wage of a local security guard.

"When somebody is poor and trapped in this poverty, what choice do they have?," said Phil ya Nangoloh, executive director of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) in the capital Windhoek. Ya Nangoloh said profit-driven recruiting companies were looking only for the cheapest labour, which means they can exploit the desperately poor and uneducated. "Some of them do not have even have access to newspapers or television to know what is going on there with the suicide bombers," Ya Nangoloh said. "Some of these people looking for jobs may not even know where Iraq is. They may think that it is a country next door."

Amnesty International USA’s Business and Human Rights Unit told IRIN that some TCNs effectively work in conditions of "indentured servitude," in which they sign employment contracts that last for three to five years, "but spend their first year just paying off travel expenses,"

Migrating capitalism

The Malaysian textile company Ramatex came to Namibia in 2001. The N$1 billion project (about US$127 million) was the first large-scale industrialization investment in the country. It decided to close down its operations -- a move that will destroy 3,000 jobs. The company had been provided with an incentive package that included subsidized water and electricity and a 99-year lease exemption for the 65-hectare site. The government provided the site with electricity and sewerage infrastructure to the tune of N$100 million (almost US$13 million). It was exempt from corporate tax, import duties on imported inputs, value added tax (currently at 15 percent), and transfer duties. It was permitted to repatriate their capital and profits while enjoying freedom from exchange controls. It could hold foreign currency accounts at local banks.

Ramatex arrived in Namibia to benefit from the United States' Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). AGOA provides preferential access to certain imports, such as clothing and textiles, from developing countries in Africa. Namibia started the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) in 1996 with wide-ranging incentives to create an accommodating and profitable environment for manufacturers exporting to markets outside the Southern African Customs Union. The state-owned Offshore Development Company (ODC) promotes and markets Namibia's EPZ to facilitate export-led industrialization.

Five years ago, the workforce stood at nearly 8,000. In 2005, a subsidiary shop called Rhino garments closed down. Ramatex's cotton spinning and ginning plant closed shortly afterwards and the workforce shrunk to 3,000. The company's products were mainly exported to the USA, but its production and sales volumes were never made public resulting in persistent questions about the company's claim that it was making a loss . Now it is to close down completely with the loss of those remaining jobs . The non-suspecting workers, mostly young women, found the main gate to the textile company, which is situated on the outskirts of Windhoek closed when they reported for duty. Instead of clocking in, the workers were greeted by a heavy presence of security forces, which included members of the Special Field Force, City Police, Namibian Police officials and traffic officials who had cordoned off the area . The Namibian Police feared that the angry workers might vandalise the property and steal some of the materials and sewing machines belonging to the company. The police were also concerned that if they allowed the workers in, it would be very difficult to remove them from the premises afterwards. After long hours of negotiations, the workers were allowed to collect their personal belongings in small groups that the Namibian Police could easily control.
The Namibian Labour Commissioner told workers that he would ensure that Filipino and other Asian workers would also receive just payment and treatment during negotiations. In the past, Asian workers at the company have allegedly been quietly deported when labour issues between them and the company became a problem.

Prime Minister Nahas Angula said Ramatex has acted in bad faith because it had earlier agreed with the Government that it would give one year's notice before closing down but instead only gave a month's notice. "They cannot just wake up in the morning and say they are leaving." he said

According to researcher Herbert Jauch of Namibia's non-governmental Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRi), ordinary workers usually lose out as transnational companies make use of EPZ regimes in countries for a short while, only to quickly disappear again to the next.
''Transnational corporations like Ramatex are highly mobile and exploit the opportunities created by neoliberal globalization,'' Jauch wrote in a recent study called ''The Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa.'' ''There is a need to tackle such companies by questioning the neoliberal global order and by creating mechanisms of democratic control that will ensure an end to exploitative practices and the free reign of capital,'' Jauch stated in the publication.

Over and over again , workers learn the hard lesson that businesses exists to accumulate capital and will forever seek fresh pastures and new exploitation .

Namibia - New Ways of Living Needed

Namibia's land reform programme is a "zero sum game" that merely swaps one form of poverty for another . The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), a non-governmental human rights organisation based in the capital, Windhoek, said in a report reviewing the achievements so far of Namibia's land reform programme, No Resettlement Available, that "most resettlement farms are not doing very well; in fact, it is not apparent that any are."

Namibia, which won its independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990, inherited a colonial division of land in which about half the agricultural land is owned by 3,500 white farmers. Farms average about 5,000 hectares in the north of the country and 10,000 hectares in the south, while nearly 1 million black Namibians live on "heavily overgrazed" communal lands. Namibia is an arid country of about 825,400sq km, of which only about 100sq km are suitable for dry [non-irrigated] crop cultivation; it suffers drought in six out of every 10 years with a growing population of about 2 million people . While white commercial farmers were heavily subsidised with both capital and large numbers of livestock by past German and South African colonial governments, resettled farmers have neither, and are left to an impoverished lifestyle which is often as bad or worse than the one they had prior to joining the resettlement programme.

The size of the farms allocated and the agricultural methods practiced were among the problems identified. :-
"Black farmers get smaller units than white farmers held, but remain stuck with the same plan to be livestock farmers . Since even the larger white farms were not very profitable this apportionment is both setting black farmers up to fail, and failing to reconceptualise a new Namibian agricultural order that could both feed the growing populationand provide reasonable incomes to the new black commercial farmers."

The reports goes on to explain :-
"Dividing large farms into units of one-fifth to one-seventh the size of the original farm - being the typical resettlement farm size - not only applies the failed colonial model of cattle farming, but further weakens it, in that farms of such small sizes cannot succeed. The large commercial farm of the apartheid era, an old and inefficient structure of agriculture, is being reproduced in a diluted form."

The Namibian government, like those of neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe, has made land reform a central policy tenet, and the government's resettlement scheme has placed 800 farms in black hands in the 17 years since independence . This is about 12 percent of all farms, or less or than one percent a year, so the process will take over 100 years to complete . The report also cited numerous failures in the division and resettlement of commercial farms, from not granting land title and "leaving poor people in some kind of tenant relationship with the government which is not empowering them," to a lack of transparency, the absence of any support for resettled farmers and the overblown bureaucracy of the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement - and the government generally. For example, resettling 9,000 people in 12 years amounts to fewer than 800 a year, hardly more than 125-130 families. Yet it takes a staff of perhaps 1,000 government employees to do this work

The report recommends an overhaul of the agricultural sector, from the "apartheid era" cattle farming, to new farming methods such as "crop cultivation and tropical agriculture". Tropical agriculture is usually labour-intensive subsistence farming and cash-crop production, using techniques like moveable cages that confine animals to feeding on weeds, the use of crop residues as litter in the cages, disposal of human waste in deep pits that are later planted with trees, and the use of ashes as fertiliser and in soap production.

Even poorly paid farm workers (an estimated 222,000 people ) , have their basic needs met: they receive a regular salary, are allowed to have chicken , small stock and perhaps even cattle, and live in reasonably good housing. All of this disappears on a Namibian resettlement farm.

By only abolishing just the apartheid racist system it should be obvious to many that the capitalist economic system cannot solve the problems of poverty and production . With the struggle for acquiring political rights out of the way , it is now time for the struggle for a new society to begin .

BBC Video - The German Genocide of the Hetero