San group sues for N$2.8trn for national park

The Hai//om Association is suing the Namibian Government for N$2.8trn, which they say is what the Etosha National Park is worth, reports News24. The country's second largest San group was removed from the land in 1954 by South African colonial forces. In papers filed in the Windhoek High Court, the Hai//om Association wants the court to declare that the 23 150km2 park belongs to them, along with the land on which 11 farms are situated in Mangetti in the Kavango West region. The association chairperson and Hai//om leader Jan Tsumib and the nine other applicants also want the court to declare that the community is 'entitled to the exclusive beneficial and use of the land' on which the Etosha National Park was created in 1958, excluding the Namibia Wildlife Resorts at Okaukwejo, Namutoni and Halili. If the government is unable to give the Hai//om the Etosha National Park, they want the court to declare they are entitled to have land of equivalent size and quality to Etosha and the Mangetti farms awarded to them or they are entitled to N2.8trn. This, they say, is the estimated market value of the land they claim. The government has notified the court that it will oppose the claims. Contacted by News24 for comment, Tsumib declined, saying it was before court. The Hai//om is the largest San group in Namibia, numbering 9000 people. They lived in the Etosha National Park for centuries before being forcibly removed in 1954 by the SA colonial administration. In their main claim, they say they were deprived of ownership of the land, its natural resources, the right to development and the right to practise their religion and culture. They also claim they were subjected to genocide. They are also asking the court to make further orders, including a declaration that the Hai//om people have 'the right to freely deal with, develop or dispose of' the wealth and natural resources' of the area, compensation for their past loss of the land and its resources and that they are entitled to reasonable access to the land.

Their lawyers, Corrina van Wyk of the Legal Assistance Centre in Windhoek, and three senior counsel, allege that the German colonial authorities perpetrated a genocide against the Hai//om and other San groups in the early 20th century. The papers add that in 1907, the colonial governor of German South West Africa established Game Reserve Number 2 over much of the Etosha lands, writes News24. After German colonial rule ended in 1915, the SA colonial authorities breached their international duties to the Hai//om and committed many human rights violations, including 'treating them as sub-humans with a status little better than the wildlife protected in Game Reserve Number 2' and subjecting them to the institutionalised racial discrimination and apartheid policies. In 1954, they say, all Hai//om people living in the reserve, except 12 families with members employed there, were ordered to leave without compensation and without alternative land made available to them. In 1997, the Hai//om protested by blocking the Etosha entrance, demanding a return of their land, but were met with force by police. In 2015, they took the Namibian Government to court seeking the restoration of their rights to Etosha and the Mangetti farms and N3.9bn in compensation. The High Court dismissed the case on the grounds that the applicants did not represent the official Hai//om Traditional Authority recognised by the government in 2004. Neither party would comment on or discuss the current case.